The debonair side of Das

Sunil Das is more than the sum of his bulls and horses

You're forgiven if you assumed Sunil Das was a painter of just horses and bulls; it isn't without reason he's affectionately been christened Ghoda Das.

Das takes no offence to it; he owes a lot to the mounted-police stables he was drawn to spend all his time in, with its inhabitants "" the horses that inspired his now illustrious crisp strokes and sensuous lines with their primal vigour.

But that's not all he is known for. Au contraire, his enormous repository of work underlines his understanding and use of a variety of themes, with his masterful drawing always playing protagonist.

From non-representational abstract forms to the symbolism of his Tantra-inspired works, the splintered imagery of his Bangladesh/Gulf war series to the ravaged forms of his prostitutes: while it's hard to draw a tacit correlation between themes, the passion with which he engages his subjects is apparent.

At the opening of Das's retrospective show last week in Mumbai (and later this month in Kolkata, and in January in Delhi) that also saw the launch of his book by art critic and friend Manasji Majumdar, art lovers were treated to a body of Das's work that was surprising in its diversity.

Majumdar was happy to divert attention from himself to Das's work, "Sunil's work has a strong moral sense, so every canvas is a critique. Anyway, in Calcutta no painters can shut themselves out from their socio-political environs. But his excellence in handling a social issue lies in him reacting, without making a political statement".

The rooted reality of his Kalighat home has offered Das a steady stream of influences. "I have the burning ghat on one side, a temple on the other, the Ganga, humanity everywhere, touching, pushing..." But not one to limit himself to readymade stimulus, Das has been consistently fidgety, chasing new frontiers of expression.

Particularly unanticipated are his collaged-drawings with bits of thread, wire, even scraps of printed visuals; remarkably playful and unorthodox. He says, "I tell my artist friends to experiment with the variety of material, theme and expression available to them, and not become fixed in direction. The buyers will automatically come".

Luckily, that's never been a problem for him and he'll tell you that candidly. Recognition was his early when he was awarded two national awards while still studying at the Government College of Arts and Crafts in Calcutta.

He won a French government scholarship soon after, to the Ecole National des Beaux Arts, Paris, where he was catapulted into prodigious international exposure. His first painting sold for Rs 100, a princely sum in the late 1950s, and everywhere he went he found buyers for his art.

My life in Europe is fodder for the movies, says Das, trying to wriggle out of detail but with a little egging on, he tells of why he unexpectedly returned to India.

A love-sick landlady turned out to be more than he bargained for, and to escape the wrath of a woman spurned, he boarded a hasty return to Calcutta. His rasping cough interrupts but doesn't take away his infectious sense of humour. "She would drive all my Parisian girlfriends away," he laughs.

His sojourn in Paris and Madrid made a lasting impression on him, not just in his thematic obsession with the bull, but also in his initiation into non-figurative art that was in vogue in Europe at the time.

Sunil Das is pleased about life and spends his time travelling around the world. He is a restless boheme who chases new cultures that bring with them new stimuli, and new friends.

"I am lucky to have some of the best friends in the world;" and then adds, "also some of the best buyers. They tell me 'Sunilda, draw me another one of your bulls, or paint me a larger canvas', and I just love it." This curly-haired, twinkle-eyed patrician shows no signs of slowing down.