Pankha Poems: To Stir the Still Air: Jatin Das is a contemporary artist and has a deep interest in traditional art. One summer afternoon, 40 years ogo, Jatin Das's journey of collecting hand fans began with one and now the Pankha collection is one of the largest collections of hand fans in the world.
The Collection has been exhibited in many museums, including the Kennedy Centre Washington DC, Fan Museum London, Museum Rietberg Zurich, National Museum Manila, National Art Gallery Kuala Lumpur, Victoria Memorial Museum Kolkata, IGNCA Delhi and started with the very first show at the National Craft Museum Delhi. He searched for all related objects including pankha poems. This anthology which has taken years to come together consists of 79 poems written by 71 poets in 18 Indian languages. These span from Kashmiri to Konkani, Marathi to Manipuri, Maithili to Malayalam, Odia to Urdu. Some of the poets are well known, and some are unknown, but they have a similar fervour. All these different poets, from different regions, living different lives, have a similar relationship with the pankha. The poems have brought us together, closer across time and space. Our experience with pankha is a shared one.
Jatin Das (b. 1941) is a painter, sculptor, muralist, and poet. Born in Mayurbhanj Odisha, he grew up in Bombay and lives in New Delhi. He has held over 75 one-man shows in India and overseas and his artworks are featured in several public and private collections. To celebrate fifty years of India's Independence, he was commissioned to make the mural, "The Journey of India: Mohenjo-Daro to Mahatma Gandhi" (7ft x 68ft), at the Indian Parliament, which was inaugurated in 2001 by the then Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He also has painted many murals in India and abroad. In 2012 he was conferred the prestigious Padma Bhushan, by the President of India. He has been a professor of art and lectured across the world. He has served as an advisor to numerous public and private cultural bodies. Das's commitment to preserving the arts and crafts led him to the dream of setting up the JD Centre of Art in his home state of Odisha. The building designed by Pritzker awarded architect BV Doshi, is now ready. JDCA will house his collection of modern art, traditional and folk art, all under one roof.
One summer afternoon, 40 years ago, I saw a friend sitting depressed in my studio in Nizamuddin, New Delhi. I picked up a pankha (hand fan) and with mock seriousness said, "Let me stir the still air". It suddenly occurred to me that this would be the perfect title for a book on Pankhas. When an idea is born in my mind. I visualize the larger picture and pick up the thread and follow it. The journey of collecting hand fans has come a long way since, and now I have more than 8,000 hand fans. The collection has a wide variety of Pankhas - from antique ceiling fans from the Mughal and Colonial period that were pulled by pankhawala, to those used for large congregations, and the ones used in temples and homes.
Whenever I visit any new place, I scout for hand fans and traditional crafts. I also sketch them and take photographs. In each place, the pankha is made of a different material, according to what grows or is available there. Every time I bought an exquisite hand fan from a village home, I carried the guilt of depriving the people of their personal belonging and the memory that's attached to it. Even though the cost of making an 'ordinary' pankha is minimal, the workmanship, effort and personal connection with it make these delicate objects invaluable. Though the antique dealers would immediately smell that I was a collector, and would not let me leave without me buying some rare heirloom that had found its way from palaces and havelis. The price of such fans was, of course, very high.
I also collected hand fans when I visited different countries. Africa, Egypt, the Middle East, Far Eastern countries like China, Korea and Japan, and countries in South East Asia, such as Indonesia-all these tropical countries have a big fan culture in their everyday life and in their traditional dances. There is also a fan language in many countries. The collection grew with gifts from family and friends from across the globe. Paintings, my only source of income, have alone funded this unusual collection. It is a small attempt to draw attention to the rare and dying crafts of India.
In May 2004 many Pankhas came out of the trunks for their maiden exhibition, held at the National Crafts Museum, New Delhi, inaugurated by Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, the great aesthete and art historian. After a month, the exhibition travelled to the grand Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, on the invitation of the Government of West Bengal. Tens of thousands of people visited. And at the end of that year, a selection of fans was shown at the Fan Museum in London for four months. It was followed by the exhibit being shown at the Reitberg Museum, Zurich, Switzerland; the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the National Museum, Manila, The Philippines. In 2011, they were also exhibited at the 'Maximum India Festival' at The John F. Kennedy Centre in Washington DC. And then in 2018 there was a large show at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi. There is a proposal for a stand-alone museum of pankhas in Delhi.
Over the years, my passion became a large collection that needed systematic research, documentation and archiving. We also travelled to many parts of India and made short documentary films on the craft of fan making. Some of them were supported by IGNCA, New Delhi. It expanded to include paintings, prints, miniatures, photographs and poems on the subject.
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