Wilting Grass, Leaves and Trees

Paris Mohankumar's exhibition, 'Reverberations', focuses on the widespread environmental degradation in the world
Photo by K. Shijith
By Shevlin Sebastian

Later, when he into another house, he saw a wooden piece that was part of an old door. It had scratches, long embedded lines and a couple of holes. He took it home, and painted the figure of a woman on it, in a pastel shade, with the face turned sideways, and the hair held up in a bob. It was titled 'Rebirth'.





In many other paintings, he has shown wilting grass, leaves and trees. “In Wayanad, where I stay, factories are coming up and spoiling the landscape,” he says. “Most of the politicians are only interesting in making profits.”
Another endangered area is the Niligiri Biosphere Reserve. “I am told that more than 5000 acres are up for sale,” he says. “I am trying to highlight all this through my work.”

The gifted Mohankumar made a mark when he was a teenager through his paintings and sculptures. When a well-known monk, Swami Dayananda Saraswati asked him to do a scultpture of a Hindu god, Mohankumar was flummoxed. Because of his father's Communist leanings, there was no religion in the house. So, he consulted an encylopaedia which belonged to his father and did a bust of Socrates.
But when he displayed it to the monk, his followers were flummoxed.
“Everybody asked the guru, 'Who is this?',” says Mohankumar. “Swamiji replied that this is a 'God of Gods'.”
The impressed Saraswati invited Mohankumar to spend time at his ashram, which was just eight kilometres from his house at Mahe. Mohankumar went there and learnt meditation and yoga. Thereafter, he spent five years as a member of the Aghoris cult at Rishikesh. But all along, he was obsessed with art. And with the Swamiji's help, he went to Paris in 1974, and launched a successful career as an artist.
“My work has been shown in 40 countries,” says Mohankumar, who spent two decades in Europe. His high point was when he was honoured by UNESCO in 1988 as one of the 40 greatest artists in the world. Today, he is on a mission to encourage organic farming among the tribals in Wayanad.
“Mankind should realise it cannot survive, unless we nurture the environment,” says Mohankumar. 
(Sunday Magazine, The New Indian Express, South India and Delhi)