A Village Scene by Kanta Jogi

This tradition of painting was started by the late Ganesh Jogi and his wife Teju Jogi, who belongs to the Jogi community – a community of Sarangi players and devotional singers. In the tradition of their forefathers, they went from one neighborhood to another at daybreak, singing bhajans to wake people up. In exchange they got grains, clothes and sometimes money. Over a period of time, he found it increasingly difficult to earn a living from his music and fend for his family. A chance meeting with the well known artist, Haku Shah, the eminent writer and cultural anthropologist, initiated him into exploring and developing his drawing skills. When first asked to draw, Ganesh who was almost thirty-five years old, said he didn’t know how to hold a pen! Eventually though, he developed a style of his own which was naïve yet fresh with extraordinarily complex images comprising dots and lines. His wife Teju experimented with different mediums, added colors to the drawings and drew character studies of women in urban settings. Thus a new art tradition was born and his entire family consisting of his wife, sons, daughters and their spouses are continuing with it. Such is the interest it has generated amongst art lovers that their works are even finding their way into art auctions.