Chief Copy Editor Abhijit C Chandra profiles an officer and a gentleman
BHOPAL: Painting – an artistic pursuit where the sole limit is one's own imagination – and soldiering, a rough-and-tough no-nonsense profession embedded in glorious tradition and governed by cast-iron discipline; seem to have absolutely nothing in common but, in the indomitable spirit of the Indian Army, Col Jaspreet Gujral – decorated with the Sena Medal – has succeeded in deftly combining these two vastly-divergent spheres. In fact, the officer wields his service weapon and the brush with equal elan!
When there is mention of the world’s highest battlefield – the Siachen Glacier – the image that springs before the mind's eye is of blizzard-battered icy terrain with ever-vigilant faujis cradling rifles. However, that’s precisely where then Maj. Gujral began a heady romance in 1993 with art and his better half – also named Jaspreet – has been supporting her husband heart and soul.
While interacting with ‘Developing India Mirror’, at the Bharat Bhavan multi-art centre in this City of Lakes, just days prior to his superannuation on September 30, the Artillery officer – staging a solo exhibition consisting of 28 acrylic-on-canvas creations – said, “A havildar in my unit happened to be an artist himself and provided me a brush, canvas and one of his paintings to copy and learn. The end product came out rather well.”
Col. Gujral has more than a dozen solo exhibitions to his credit as his works have been displayed in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune etc. This was his maiden exhibition in the Madhya Pradesh capital.
In 2009, he attended a Lalit Kala Akademi artists’ camp in Chhattisgarh to learn the nuances, began depicting people, profiles, landscapes, still life and eventually graduated to abstract towards which he was inclined as his objective is to make the “invisible visible” and he is of the opinion that art should be open for interpretation. For almost a decade, acrylic-on-canvas is his medium of expression.
“My family always encouraged me and sans them these milestones – actually teamwork – wouldn’t have been possible. They comprise my best critics. Art definitely changed our lives. I don’t interact much with other artists. This is homegrown art not inspired by anybody, only by the Almighty. It’s a pilgrimage that commenced more than two decades back. I’m not interested in sale and never looked at short-term gains,” he adds.
So, what were the hurdles in his journey?
“Challenges are always there. The military profession is obviously extremely demanding. There are time constraints. As an officer, my priority is always to accomplish tasks assigned to me, the hobby took second place. Even while undertaking operations, I painted during off-duty hours. Often, material was unavailable and when it was there was the financial aspect involved in purchase,” recalls Col. Gujral who hails from Ambala cantonment town.
The officer is pained by the fact that, in present-day India, patriotism for the average civilian has become a mere superficial fashion largely restricted to red-letter days.
“When it comes to respecting a soldier, there is a lack of genuineness. However, the situation isn’t the same throughout the nation. Residents of states that witnessed conflict have high esteem for those in olive green,” he points out.
Born on September 9, 1962, he lost his sire at the tender age of four. However, his mother – who worked in the Posts and Telegraphs Department – brought him up. He studied at the Sainik School, Chittorgarh. The officer was commissioned in 1983 after training at the National Defence Academy. His parent unit was the 34 Medium Regiment. The impressions gathered while in service are reflected in his works. His first posting was Allahabad. He also served in Pune, Srinagar, Baramulla, Kupwara, Aurangabad, Secunderabad and the Military Headquarters Of War. Besides being in the Army Aviation Corps and an instructor at N.D.A., he completed a dozen courses while in service and received the Silver Cheetah.
The officer’s marriage took place during his posting in Patiala. The couple has a son who is a senior analyst and a daughter who studied at I.I.T and is employed at a multinational corporation.
“When my children observed me rising at 0300 hrs, neither giving up nor compromising vis-à-vis my pursuit, they absorbed this culture and my daughter’s superior recently told her that he admires her never-say-die attitude. Fight like a soldier, paint like a painter! Total involvement is imperative,” concludes the officer who is learning the tabla for the past three years in order to achieve a jugalbandi between the “visual” and the “musical”.
“What has the sound of cracking of a crisp tandoori roti to do with the digital world? I was chasing silence all these days – the chase from a brick and mortar world. What if I catch silence? The zone beyond the silence, where even silence does not exist, may be like the world of infinite bits and bytes breaking and unbreaking at any instant. This zone surprisingly is coexisting with the muscle and tattoo world. My paintings may be depicting a world I am hallucinating, where elements have been eliminated,” the artist concludes.