A versatile genius
Gieve Patel was an Indian poet, dramatist, painter, visual artist, and doctor.Nissim Ezekiel’s 1966 release of poems began his writing career.
‘How Do You Withstand’, ‘Body Mirrored Mirroring’, and ‘On Killing A Tree’ are some of his other works.
For a decade, he led poetry classes at Rishi Valley School. His poems appeared in Anthologies The Golden Treasure of Writers Workshop and Contemporary Indian Poetry. He also translated into English songs written by Gujarati poet Akho in the 17th century.
He examined modern life and depicted social reality via poetry, emphasising both its intricacy
and beauty and revealed the cruelty of man toward nature. The beleaguered terrain of the human body; its absurdity, perishability, and frailty; the vulgar social inequalities of caste and class, the plight of the subaltern, always pushed to the periphery of history and art, the daily litany of violence, conflict, and pain, the everpresent threat of physical death, and a penetrating curiosity about what lay beyond a world of volatile
materialism were among his enduring concerns.
Patel began by colouring and duplicating book replicas. Then he was mentored by Akbar Padamsee.In 1966, he had his debut exhibition at Mumbai’s
Jehangir Art Gallery. His paintings gained recognition in the public eye with his Railway
Platform series and the Politician series in the late 1960s and early 1970s.His memories of
watching trains arrive and depart while seated on a bench at a suburban train station served as the inspiration. It’s interesting that he portrayed the platform as empty even though it was constantly packed. As a result, he painted peaceful scenes because he yearned for seclusion in the middle of the
bustling city.
He called himself a profane monk, whose poetry displayed a slightly sick concern with the body. One of his best-known paintings, Crows with Debris (2000), shows two crows removing pieces of a rat’s body from each other’s beaks. Patel preferred Bombay to the sterile Western cities because it allowed death to remain an inevitable part of daily life, and did not hide its dead. As a doctor he was unable to envision ending any suffering.
He spent the last twenty years obsessing about looking into a well. In his hometown, and the surrounding areas, the wells not very deep; one could reach down and
touch the water. He created a painting series called Peering Into a Well. For him, it was a sensory experience that could be enjoyed day or night as it was like peering into the depths of oneself. In the Upanishads, Patel discovered the metaphor of the well as the ‘navel of the Earth’
He took part in the 1982 Oxford exhibition India, ‘Myth and Reality’; the 1976 Menton Biennale
in France; and the 1982 Royal Academy of London exhibition. In 2010, Patel staged his debut sculpture exhibition, loosely centered around two themes: Greek mythology’s Daphne and the Mahabharata’s Ekalavya narrative. Additionally, Patel wrote three plays: Princes (1970), Savaksa (1982), and Mister Behram (1988). However, none of them were well-received by the theatre community. The label ‘Parsi playwright’, however infuriated him.
In addition to the Woodrow Wilson and Rockefeller fellowships he got in 1984 and 1992; in
2003 the University of Pennsylvania awarded him the C.R. Parekh writer-in-residence grant through the Norman Foundation.
His mastery over many fields won him a cult following. He left behind a very simple legacy that encompassed words, visuals, and all forms in between. His own seminal way of expressing his ideas was through his subtle use of language and imagery.
It was reported that the seven islands mourned collectively when he passed away of cancer in Pune at
83. His impish smile, dry chuckle, and cough, will be remembered. He was a clever and wickedly funny person who was perceptive about human nature; compassionate but never sentimental, and whose stoic wisdom was balanced by his contagious laughter. His daughter survives him.
A.Radhakrishnan is a Pune based freelance journalist, poet and short story writer who when not enjoying his favourite cup of coffee, loves to keep people happy.