Pu La's words of praise were my biggest award

On June 13-16, 1986, it was my first independent exhibition of photographs at Balgandharva Rangamandir, Kaladalan. On display at the exhibition, Swara-Chitranchya Kathavaratee', were photographs featuring musical expressions of artists from the world of Indian classical music. Artists Sanjay Pawar, Bhau Narvekar, Pramod Deshpande, Sandeep Holay, Jayant Pathak and my brothers, Hemant and Harish, displayed prints together overnight.



At the time of the inauguration, the hall was full of music lovers and photography enthusiasts. At the auditorium were Ustad Saiduddin Dagar, Guru Rohinitai Bhate, Ashatai Gadgil, Madhukar Parundekar and Dattopant Deshpande. On the four adjacent walls of the exhibition hall were music maestros such as

Mogubai Kurdikar

, Bhimsen Joshi, Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan, Amjad Ali Khan, Zakir Hussain.

On June 16, the final day of the event, my eyes were fixed at the gallery door. I was eagerly waiting for a person I had invited personally. Will he come? It was almost half-past-four in the evening. I went to the cafeteria for tea. My friend, Pramod, suddenly ran towards me, saying, "Come on, hurry up. Pu La Deshpande and his friend are ar the gallery. He is asking for you."

I left the cup and ran to the gallery. Both of them were looking at the photographs with a crowd around. I went slowly and stood beside Pu La Deshpande. After some time, he said, "Hey, where were you? I was looking for you ? Meet my friend Nanda Naralkar."

I greeted both of them. I could not believe my eyes. Both were in front of me - Pu La Deshpande with his best friend. And both were applauding my work. For the next one hour or so, they enjoyed watching the exhibition and were nostalgic about the memories of various concerts they attended. After watching the entire exhibition, Pu La wrote in a remark book, "These excellent photographs create melodies in the minds." This was certainly one of the biggest awards for me at the beginning of my career.

Then Pu La asked me how much money have been spent on the exhibition. On knowing that all the expense was borne by me, he said, "We at National Centre of the Performing Arts (NCPA) are preserving the sound recordings of all these artists. Give us a copy of each artist's photo as a cover for that collection. Give me a letter of how much it will cost."

The following week, I and my friend, Pramod Deshpande, went to Mumbai by

Sinhagad Express

. A BEST bus dropped us at NCPA. Those days, there was no skyscraper in front of NCPA. On the sidewalk, we entered a gate on the side of the Tata Theatre.

"What do you want?" the watchman asked. "We are called by Pu La Deshpande Saheb," I replied. The watchman asked us to follow him and took us to the guest house. He rang the door bell, a house help opened the door and went inside with the message, "There is someone from Pune."

We were standing. After five minutes, Pu La entered the room . He was wearing a 'pista' colour kurta and a pair of 'pajamas'. After a causal conversation about our journey, Pu La asked, " Have you visited NCPA. before?" I said, "No".

In the meantime, I gave him the estimate letter for the photoprints. He looked at it and said it was okay. While having tea, Pu La asked the house help to get the keys and open the Piramal Gallery and Library.

As we reached the library, we saw various books, reference material, newspapers and treasures of cultural details. Pu La showed us the music section for which he had asked me to give the prints. Then we reached the Piramal Art Gallery. There were some prints of earlier exhibitions.

"All exhibitions here are on invitations. Photographers work on any theme and send their portfolio. The experts choose the ones to be displayed. The photographer has to give only prints. The work on display will be taken care of by the NCPA staff. All costs are borne by NCPA," he said. Then I realized why Pu La had asked me the expenses during my exhibition.

We then reached a fairly large hall in the middle. On one side was a curtain from roof to floor. There was a huge organ gifted by a Parsi family. From there we reached a restaurant called Rangoli with an experimental theater on its left

Finally we reached the stage of the Tata Theater. It was a semi-circular stage with a similar semi-sitting arrangement for 1,010 spectators and excellent acoustics. Pu La said, "An architect called

Philip Johnson

had designed it."

NCPA was the dream of JRD Tata and Jamshed Bhabha. The man who had worked hard to realize the dream was the honorary director and master of Marathi literature Pu La Deshpande. And he himself was showing us everything spread over 32,000sqm. What could have been more fascinating?


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