25. Into The Shekhawati Survey
24. Early Foreign Visitors To Shekhawati 2
October 8, 2020
26. Starting With Ramgarh
October 22, 2020
B oth Shekhawati books found and lost publishers. Francis Wacziarg and Aman Nath turned to a book packager and their 'The Painted Walls of Shekhavati' came out in 1982, causing a stir in Delhi. The interest sent a surge of city and embassy folk to Shekhawati. It left plenty of scope for mine, so I continued researching then moved to the island of Diu, off the Gujarat coast, to update the text.
In August 1984, Dr John Smith told me of a project to conserve Shekhawati's murals. He and Dr Raymond Allchin, Professor of Indian Archaeology, both in Cambridge University's Oriental Studies faculty, had been invited by newly-formed INTACH to a seminar that December. Although not invited, after ten years research on the murals, I decided to attend.
In Delhi, freshly off the train with no idea where INTACH was based, I found it thanks to Aman Nath's mother, who dropped me into the formal welcoming party for the delegates. John Smith, the only person I knew, had been unable to come, but the British High Commissioner's wife introduced me to the British contingent.
The seminar shifted to Mandawa, in Shekhawati, where the delegates divided according to their expertise. Put with Professor & Doctor Allchin in the ethnographic and archaeological group, at the close of the seminar, I was asked to document the local buildings. The Charles Wallace Trust provided funds for both Indian and British researchers so an honorarium was drawn up and agreed by INTACH. This included a wise bonus for each hundred buildings surveyed. As assistant, I suggested Ravindra 'Rabu' Sharma from Churu. A government teacher, son of a respected retired headmaster, he was fluent in English and Marwari. He was also enthusiastic. We could begin in September 1985. Dr B K Thapar and Martand Singh of INTACH were insistant that we start sooner so, having agreed to March, I returned to Diu.
Back in Shekhawati for the documentation, I discovered INTACH had decided unilaterally to reduce the agreed funding to a basic monthly rs 3000 (£150), low even in those days, without the bonus. With encouragement from the British academics involved, I submitted. No forms, film or motorcycle were ready nor had Rabu been released. I started work with Ram Ratan, Rabu's younger brother, then spent the summer in England.
In September, back in Delhi, I found nothing was ready, but it wasn't INTACH which nearly terminated the project: after collecting the new Rajdoot 175ml motorbike. I was driving up the highway from Faridabad, cheerfully ignoring the running-in speed, when the engine seized abruptly in front of a loaded truck. The mercifully-alert Sikh driver swerved and gave us a juicy earful of Punjabi as he passed.
Despite teething problems, the next two years were marvellous. Once forms film, payment and, most tediously, Rabu's release were organised, we were able to begin. INTACH soon realised we were keen to work and could look after ourselves. Left to our own devices, all went smoothly. Hershad Kumari Sharma, our new contact at INTACH, was straightforward and cooperative. Rabu quickly picked up most of what I'd learned and did the bulk of the photography. We worked six days a week, making street maps of each town, documenting its finer buildings and attaching the relevant contact prints to every form. A foreigner attracted interest, so we were constantly approached to explain ourselves. Rabu's temperament (calmer than mine) and his local contacts constantly smoothed the way. Each week, to escape the streets, we set aside a day to survey some peaceful hilltop fort, derelict temple, isolated bowri or chhatri. Between March 1985 and May 1987 we covered 2260 buildings, mostly painted havelis.
I catalogued the negatives for INTACH: they are a treasure still not digitalised or copied. They were later mislaid but reappeared after more than two years; someone had set to rearrange them but given up half-way. The survey was intended to be published, to be readily available. It isn't. The bound forms (our names omitted) remain in INTACH's library. Are they yet digitalised? Researchers wishing to consult them must come to Delhi. Despite my pleas, they may photocopy neither forms nor maps so further research is virtually impossible. I digitalised my copy of the survey fourteen years ago and have regularly updated it. What am I supposed to do when Indian students approach me requiring help?
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In London in 1985, I approached 'Penguin' with my book. They were enthusiastic and, told of our current project, wrote to INTACH to ask whether they would be interested in being involved and ordering copies. The response was hostile, claiming copyright over my photographs and suggesting I was plagiarising Wacziarg and Nath's book. Both were manifestly false. I had first told Francis Wacziarg of the painted towns. Reference to my illustrated articles features in their bibliography. I had also shown their book to 'Penguin' as an argument to publish mine. The monochrome survey photographs were INTACH's copyright, although it had been agreed that I had the right to use them, but all earlier images were my own. There is no better way to sabotage a book than to tell a publisher of an existing dispute on a copyright issue. The book was duly turned down. I forwarded the INTACH letter to Sir Bernard Feilden, the doyen of the seminar, saying I couldn't work under such conditions. He suggested I calm down and complete the survey. I never regretted following his advice, but everything had changed.
Determined it shouldn't die, in 1987, I reduced and rewrote the book as a guide, 'The Painted Towns of Shekhawati'. Rabu's elder brother, Arvind provided line drawings and oversaw its production in Jhunjhunu. Priced at Rs 35, it quickly sold out. When writing on Shekhawati in The Observer, the travel writer, Eric Newby called it: '….a very good guidebook...deserving a wider public.' It got what it deserved. Mapin published it in colour and in 2017 a fourth edition came out in English and French (Prakash Books, Delhi). Another book, 'Rajasthan: Exploring Painted Shekhawati' (Niyogi Books, New Delhi), describing Col Lockett's 1831 adventures in Shekhawati against ours, was published to good reviews in 2014. Mysteriously, on Amazon it warrants two stars and a totally wrong description. Have a look!
