YOUR FORM

VwPo én _mPo XoUo IS MY CREATION

 YOUR FORM

IS MY CREATION
TUZE ROOP MAZE DENE

BHASKAR HANDE’S
EXHIBITION OF
PAINTING DRAWINGS
SCULPTURES & GRAPHICS
INSPIRED BY
“TUKARAMACHI GHATHA”

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 VwPo én _mPo XoUo
(‘TUZE ROOP MAZE DENE’)

2008

(C) Copyright Bhaskar Eknath Hande

All rights Reserved. No Part of this Publication may be

reproduced in any term or by any means, including
Photocopying without Prior Permission of the
Copyrighter.

Publisher :
Sandhya Bhaskar Hande
Vaishwik Publication (India)

Text:
Dilip Chitre
Rob Van Tour
Bhaskar Hande
YOUR FORM

IS MY CREATION

d¡{œH$
2008
YOUR FORM IS MY CREATION
TUZE ROOP MAZE DENE
PREFACE
The exhibition "Your Form Is My Creation"
consists of about 300 artworks made by the
painter,sculptor and poet Bhaskar Hande.
Bhaskar Hande hails from the state of Maharashtra
in India and lives now already for 25 years in The
Hague, The Netherlands, as an independent artist.
In "Western" eyes his work could be placed within
the abstract-expressionism, but on further
consideration we find also symbols, colours, forms
and shapes reminding us of the culture of his land
of origin.
Bhaskar Hande has grown up in the rural parts of
Maharashtra where also the great seventeenth-
century poet and saint Tukaram lived. The poems
and hymns of Tukaram are in our time still part of
the everyday life of hundreds of thousands of
human beings. The 300 artworks (paintings,
gouaches, drawings, lithographe, silkscreens and
schulptures) are inspired by the ideas of Tukaram
and the purpose of this exhibition is to make
the world of Tukaram accesible for a western
audience, for people with so many other
languages in the East, and to enliven it for Marathi-
speaking people.
TUKARAM
Tukaram's stature in Marathi literature is
comparable to that of Shakespeare in Engiish or
Goethe in German. He could be called the
quintessential Marathi poet reflecting the genius of
the language as well as its characteristic literary
culture. There is no other Marathi writer who has
so deeply and widely influenced Marathi literature
and literary culture since. Tukaram's poetry has
shaped the Marathi language, as it is spoken by
50 mil ion people today, and not just the literary
culture and language, Perhaps one could compare
his influence with that of the King James version of
the Bible upon speakers of the English language.
For Tukaram's poetry is also used by illiterate mill
ions to voice their prayers or to express their love
of God. Tukaram was born in 1608 and vanished
without a trace in 1649. What little we know of
his life is and reconstruct ion from his own
autobiographical poems, the contemporary poetess
Bahinabai's memoirs in verse and the later
biographer of Mar at hi poet-saints, Mahipati's
account. The rest is all folklore, though it cannot be
dismissed on those grounds alone.
Tukaram was born a vaishya at the middale of the
caste hierarchy. A series of traumatic events in his
life, including the devastating famine of 1629 in
which he lost his first wife, made him withdraw
from normal life and turn to religion. However, his
writing and singing in praise of Vitthal (Vishnu) to
ecstatic audiences was unacceptable to the
Brahmins who took religion to be their preserve.
Consequently he was forced to drown his entire
work in a river. He was presumably told by his
mocking detractors that if indeed he were a true
devotee of God, then God would restore his
sunken notebooks. Tukaram then undertook a
fast-unto-death praying to God for the restoration of
his work of a life time. After thirteen days of fasting,
Tukaram's sunken notebooks reappeared from the
river. They were undamaged.
BHAKTI
Tukaram became part of the Bhakti-movement,
which was the middle-way between the externes of
the Brahmins on the one hand and folk-religion on
the other. Like during Reformation time in Europe
there was a tendency towards a direct contact
between the devotee and his Gold in his own
language, without interference of priests - a pure
religion, disposed of the frills added by time and
convention. Bhakti was also the most democratic
and egalitarian community of worshippers, sharing
a way of life and caring for all life with a deep sense
of compassion. Bhakt i is founded in a spirit of
universal fellowship. Its basic principle is
sharing. The deity does not represent any
sectarian dogma to the worshipper but only a
common object of universal love or a common
spiritual focus, Poetry is an other express! on of the
same fellowship. Tukaram may have written his
poems in loneliness but he recited them to live
audiences in a shrine of Vitthal. Hundreds of people
gathered here to listen to his poetry. There has
been described by a contemporary poetess how
Tukaram, in a state of trance, chanted his poems
while an enraptured audience rocked to their rythm.
SAYS TUKA
Tukaram saw himself primarily as a poet. He has
explicitly written about being a poet, the
responsibility of a poet, the difficulties in being a
poet and so forth.
Tukaram's genius lies for an important part in
his ability to transform the external world into its
spiritual analogue. The whole world became a sort
of functional metaphor in his poetry, a text. His
poems have an apparently simple surface. But
beneath the simple surface lies a complex under
structure and the tension between the two is always
subtly suggested.
The famous "Signature Line" of each poem, "Says
Tuka" opens the door to the deeper structure.
Aphoristic, witty, satirical, ironic, wry. absurd,
startling or mystical, these endings of Tukaram's
poems often set the entire poem into sudden
reveres motion. They point to an invisible, circular
or spiral continuity between the apparent and the
real, between everyday language and the intricate
world-image that it often innocently implies
DILIP CHITRE
The translation of seventeenth-century Marathi
poetry in modern English is a very complicated
thing to do, During many periods of his life has Dilip
Chitre been doing this, fascinated again and again
by the beauty and the relevance of Tukaram's work
for present-day life -and to make Tukaram's
poems and thoughts within reach of an
international audience. Dilip Chitre was born in
1938 in Baroda, India. Among his published works
are two collections of his Marathi poems a collection
of short stories and an anthology of contemporary
Marathi poetry in translation. Dilip Chitre has so far
authored many(no. Of books) books, of which is his
translation of the 3200-line mystical Marathi poem
Anubhavamrut - The Immortal Experience of Being
written by the pioneer Marathi poet Shri Jnandev in
the 13th century.
Dilip Chitre was a member of the International
Writing Program, Iowa, U. S. A. in 1975-76. He has
lived and worked in Africa, the U. S. and many parts
of India and has lectured in universities in Europe
and the U. S. A.He lives at present in Pune. India
BHASKAR HANDE
The Artist
The Hague-based artist Bhaskar Handé was born in
India in 1957 in the village of Umbra] near Pune in,
Maharashtra state. His family was of the Kshatriya
caste, a high order of warriors from time
immemorial. From generation to generation his
forefathers were among the leaders and custodians
of the village. The past lives on vividly in this small
community and until recently the village had
maintained its medieval circular shape with one
central entrance. The inhabitants are largely tillers
of the land who supply every day one of the most
important fruit markets in Bombay, 'Crawford
Market'. The village, now housing five thousand
inhabitants, maintains original artistic traditions
such as the performance of folk dramas, in which
Bhaskar also took part as a boy. The atmosphere of
life in this rural area of India is evoked excellently in
the poems by the poet Arun Kolatkar, now also well-
known beyond India and part of whose poem 'The
Bus' is included here.
The tarpaulin flaps are buttoned down on the
windows of the state transport bus all the way up to
Jejuri
A cold wind keeps whipping and slapping a corner of
the tarpaulin at your elbow
You look down the roaring road You search for signs
of daybreak in what little light spills out of the bus
Your own divided face in a pair of glasses on an old
man's nose is all the countryside you get to see
You seem to move continually forward towards a
destination just beyond the caste mark between his
eyebrows
Outside, the sun has risen quietly It aims through
an eyelet in the tarpaulin and shoots at the old
man's glasses
The adventurous spirit of the young Bhaskar led
him at the age of 16 to exchange his sheltered
existence in Umbraj for the challenges of the big
city Bombay. Thanks to his artistic bent he received
commissions to paint cinema hoardings for the
great Bombay film industry.
Returning to his native village after several years,
the whole world of his youth had disappeared. The
authentic historic village had been swallowed up by
a reservoir. His parental home, the school, the
houses of friends and relatives, the places he had
played: everything lay deep underwater with the
exception of the age-old temple built high on a
hillside which is now only accessible by boat in the
rainy season. For the local inhabitants, a new and
anonymous village has been built on the edge of
the lake. That is how fast things change in the new
India. An uprooted Bhaskar Hande returned to
Bombay to become a working student at the local
art academy. During his study he became friends
with part of the new generation of artists: film-
makers, actors, writers and poets, fine artists. He
performed in a theatre group, travelled much of
India with the group and got to know other large
cities such as New Delhi and Calcutta. He graduated
in 1981 and acquired work at an advertising
agency.
At the secondory school and academy he became
acquainted with Western art history and he felt the
need to continue his studies abroad. On the advice
of friends who had already visited the 'West', he did
not select London or Paris, but sought contact with
art academies In Japan,Italy, the United States and
The Netherlands. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in
The Hague was the first to react and he was
admitted to the Monumental Painting and Design
course in 1982.
A complete outsider, he found himself in this
unknown world.
In 1984 he graduated and embarked on the
Animation Film course at the Vrije Academic in The
Hague,
Since 1987 he has put his paintings on show
regularly in The Hague, Amsterdam and other
European cities like Bruxels, Paris, London etc. He
has also developed as a graphic designer and in
1989 he founded his own design studio in The
Hague. From time to time he has been returnning
to India to see how fast things change in that
ancient country. In his work he
has maintained something of the great traditions of
his country, only descernable to initiates in the
glowing tones and the wilful stylistic language.
His Work
The work of Bhaskar Hande has a meditative and
philosophical background and evolves from many
biological, economic and sociological systems. His
thoughts on this are never still. 'In process', as he
himself says. A thought hangs on, attracting more
and more attention and then acquires a fixed form
that is abstract, combined with thoughts of
complexity, parallels and aspects.
Bhaskar is also inspired by time passing, knowing
that he himself has to work. His sketches and forms
are also a reflection of time, developing in works in
different techniques and materials, which in turn
contribute to further thought. He has not acquired
any specific examples or inspirations from art
history. He reads Indian philosophy but also follows
the contemporary media and uses it all in his ideas.
He does not want to copy or duplicate but to do what
he can, be what he is: original. 'It is an individual
thought that becomes universal. '
He reproduces his thoughts and influences in visual
forms on canvas. Not everyone can read poetry -
everyone can experience a painting in his own way.
The material must contribute to the whole concept of
the work. The invisible thought can be formed with
colours, materials, measurements and forms. The
mind and the heart are in continuous interaction and
cannot be separated. The natural process of thought
is meditation. Harmony and balance are the
universal values which he wants to express. The
circle, the square, the triangle and the oval form
symbolize in his work eternal stable values. Intuitive
and emotional lines meander within these forms.
Rest and restlessness keep each other in balance
and the colours provide evidence of a search for this
balance. The ratio cannot survive without emotion
and Bhaskar Hande's work is as filled with contrasts
as life itself.

Rob van Tour

‘‘Tuze Roop Maze Dene’ is a visual arts exhibition ‘Bhakti Abhyaspeeth’ has been founded fot
with a difference. It is the first large scale effort by a the study of bhakti in all its socio-cultural
contemporary artist to respond to traditional dimensions as the mainspring of the Marathi
Marathi bhakti poetry. These paintings in various literary tradition. It proposes to establish four
media, graphics in different techniques, and models centres of reserch and museums at Dehu,
of sculptures conceived on an architectural scale Nevase, Paithan and Pandharpur. It will also
are the response of one modern (or should one say encourge translations of Bhakti literature and
postmodern) artist to one of India’s greatest poets, documentation of recitation, singing, dancing,
the Marathi mystic Tukaram. bhajan, keertan and so forth. It will support
The exhibition is unique on several other interpretations of bhakti tradition in new and non-
counts, too. Bhaskar Hande was born Umbraj in the traditional media because ‘Bhakti Abhyaspeeth’
Maval region not far from Dehu where Tukaram was has been founded in the belief that the bhakti
born. Though four hundred years apart in time, both tradition is a vital component of the continuity of
share the same native universe. Though Hande has Marath culture as well as its dynamics of change.
been living Europe for about thirteen years now and
has become a Dutch citizen, his cultural signature DILIP CHITRE
has remained the same. He coninues to write
excellent poetry in Marathi and his paintings are
nourished by visual forms that can be traced back to
rural Maharashtra. His sence of colour, texture and
form is distinctly Indian. In ‘Tuze Roop Maze Dene’
his Indianness comes out even at the conceptual
and thematic level.
Yet Bhaskar Hande’s Indiannes is not
ethnicity worn on the sleeve. It is the very substance
of his cultural identity in a multi-cultural, global
community of artists. It is remarkable that he brings
the refereshing force of Tukaram’s poetic vision into
his paintings and sculptures giving them a
comprehensive cultural context. Any serious
evaluation of these works will have to account for
their cultural orgin.
Bhakti Abhyaspeeth decide to sponsor ‘Tuze
Roop Maze Dene’ precisely because it is the first
large-scale effort by any contemporary artist to
interpret the work of a major bhakta poet or to calim
inspiration from traditional bhakti poetry. This is a
novel dialogue between the language of poetry and
the language of painting in which motifs from the
unique religious culture of varkari pilgrims figure
prominently. Hande’s leitmotif is the key image of
Vithoba given varied geometric and perspectival
treatment by the artist. Semi-abstract shapes and
figures of objects familiar to the people or rural
Maharashtra, tools and implements used by
farmers or rural housewives for example, spring up
in striking forms and compositions throughout
these works. Many of Tukaram’s poems have
picturesque, vivid visual imagery. They become
texts for Hande at the level of painting. Yet Hande;s
work in not crudely illustrative or elaborately
narrative though subtly suggestive of its cultural
origin.
Sculptures
Oil Paintings
 Acrylic
Paintings
Conte-Pastel
Drawings
Gouache
Lithographs
Acrylic Drawings
silkscreens
Photography
Exhibitions
Why This Belonging
In India I have been asked very often: how did
you get interested in Tukaram? Question that
cames from common persons, journalist, press
reporters, critics and enthousiasts who know the
subject and where surprised.
My journey led me from Umbraj to Bombay
and thence to The Hague (Holland).
My journey Umbraj for, nine years in Bombay
and 25twenty five years in Holland. All these years I
dwelled among different peoples, struggling to
survive.
I led a restless life, but never stopped reading
and writing. There were many byways beside the
highway. In the process I continually kept
memories of my village, seeming so attractive in
the rat-race of city life and the absence of my
mother tongue amoung different peoples in foreign
surroundings. These reasons caused me to
become introverted. But the distance made me
more aware of the impressions, of my childhood
memories from the countryside, my culture and
religion, which became more prominent in my
thoughts. So they entered into my writing. My first
collection of poems DASHAK (decade) was partly
influenced by these impressions.
Tukaram’s roots are deep in this earth. When I
first realized, I was in a period of growing
understanding, my eyes began to see, my mind
was getting impression, I was breathing fresh air. I
saw Tukaram Dyaneshwar in the theatre, in kirtan
performances, in the pilgrimage to Pandharpur by
my parents. A small statue of Vitthal and Rukhmini
standing by the God Khandoba, paintings and
statues of varkari’s and saints inside and outside
the temples. These impression were engraved in
my mind from childhood.
At first when I read Tukaram, his work was very
hard to understand for me. I kept on trying regularly.
At the time I was beginning to apprehend the power
of writing. This was in 1979, as I was taking lessons
at the Art Academy. My visuals where
accompanying the words, or the other way round.
Now it seems difficult to decide which was first, the
visual or the words. I was interested in drawing, but
did not practice much. I was mostly doing stage
performances. In my secondary school examination
I choose Art History instead of Mathematics. I was
not sure of further academic education, so to make a
living I joined a firm producing filmposters in
Bombay.
With my natural talent for fine arts I began to draw
large faces of moviestars, and painting them in
oilpant. At the same time I was admitted to the Art
Acadamy. I supposed to attend evening courses of
literature. I was avidly reading all kinds of new
writing. In applied art, literature ad the visual arts
became more elaboratem supporting each other.
I won State Awards and people took an interest in my
work. Drama, cinema, world trade fairs, literary
publications and new circles of friends occupied me
day and night. After five years of advertising course I
obtained my diploma of Applied Arts. Now was the
time to begin to understand Tukaram’s Gatha.
I went through an unstable period of my life, hopes
and confidence. I had come to know another world.
Advertising was a glamorous field, but I wanted to
obtain a more complete knowledge of my capacities
and intellect. I began to study advanced arts in
foreign cultures and made a move in that direction.
This is how I came to Holland. From 1983 to 1987 I
stayed in a completely different culture, with a
different language and atmosphere. There were
shocks on several levels. In the village I was a
farmboy, in the city I was a country bum and in that
foreign country I was an Indian. I became conscious
that I was nowhere, not amoung my own and my
state became increasingly pinched.
Whenever I got a chance I visited the farm. Why is
this longing? I thought over and over. Where on this
earth will I not get the feeling of being a stranger? I
tried to fill an answer to this question. Slowly I began
to understand the spiritual harmony between
Tukaram and Vithoba. I began to see the meaning of
not to belong to people or places. This is not
enjoyable or unenjoyable, neither to be a devotee or
an atheist. Then I started to believe in my being.
During the last 25-twenty five years I have been
traveling between Europe and India. I have seen
many aspects of life, but I cannot answer the
question why I live in Europe and not in India or other
way around. One might say this is a dual situation,
but I do not consider it as such. I search for meaning
in the paradox of these traditions. They become a
mixture of philosophies, cultures and traditions, out
of which growns a new meaning of my life. Devotee
and deity will stand on one level like Tukaram and
Vithoba.
Visual and poetry together, this concept comes out Mankind. It is more than all words of Tukaram
when I present DASHAK (Decade) with exhibition. and others too.
I had selected ten poems to make painting out of What an experience!.
them. One of the poems, I realize the form of Not to tell but only to have.
Vitthal. In the process of reading Tukaram’s Gatha,
the form grown up vividly. Images, forms, symbols Bhaskar Hande
and metaphor which Tukaram described in his
work comes again and again. It inspired in his work
comes again and again. It inspired me. Produced
drawing, paintings, sculptures, in graphics: litho’s,
silkscreens. I have worked regularly under certain
circumstances.
At the period of travelling up and down to native
place many books had been read for thirst of
knowledge Among them are Dilip Chire’s ‘Punha
Tukaram, and its english version’ Says Tuka’ give
impules to search Tukaram and his poetry
critically.
I live in Europe last 25-twenty five years. Europe is
developed in visual art since fifteenth century.
Holland is land or Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh,
Piet Mondriaan and many other masters. I work
here and exhibit works simultaneously. The
cultural face of Europe is changing. The art world
come to the point to nowhere. All the ism turning
themselves around. Flashing power emerging
universly than continently. Malevich, Paul Klee,
Picasso, Miro, Dali, Henry Moore, have passed by.
They have brought people to the museums to have
spiritual experience. Now art scene desperately
seeking new streams.
I saw many images and forms in the dialogue
between Tukoba and Vithoba. Those images and
forms I put together with the colour in the project
“Your form is my creation”. It does not belong to any
particular ism or style; it stands for its own. It is
process of meditation of a visual world.
Visual art well-developed in Europe over five
centuries, as per development and growth, it has
up and down. Somewhere change takes place, we
never know about in our life time but we walk near
by.
In April 2008 I travel back to India by road from
Holland with an art carvan, On the Road of Indian
continent I have exhibited work of 80 national in 10
indian cities Amritsar to Banglore under title
SHOW YOUR HOPE with 80 questions around
world, I have decided to travel with Vari (
pilgrimage) to have an experience of centuries old
tradition. with sketch book and camera to celebrate
Tukarams 400 years birth anniversary with his
Palakhi Just now I have been finished walking with
people and witnessed celebration of life of
d¡{œH$
2008