One winter morning a few weeks ago, Neeraj Bakshi, 55, stood on the balcony of his sun-facing apartment in Delhi, watching a squirrel climbing a peepal tree.
As it crossed the long and bulky trunk, the squirrel was lost in the dark green-brown web of branches, twigs and leaves of the Ficus Religiosa, which overshadows Bakshi’s home.
Watching the tree and the squirrel, he was struck by a thought. It felt like a union of the literal and metaphorical, indicating the interconnectedness in the natural world and the need to establish global camaraderie.
Once again, the recluse painter had found inspiration in a regular vignette from the natural world. He entered his studio, picked up his brush, dipped it into a watercolor, and gave final touches to the last painting of the series Dreaming Animals.
Bakshi locked himself up in his studio as events were held across India to mark January 19, which is remembered as “Exodus Day” by the Kashmiri Pandits. This year marks 34 years since the violent expulsion of the community from the Kashmir Valley in 1990.
Dreaming Animals, which Bakshi has also turned into a 32-page lyrical graphic poem, draws on the experiences of the Kashmiri Pandit community.
The paintings delimit and universalise pain and suffering that humanity is facing at a planetary scale,…
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