Varsha Kharatmal was born in a family of painters and calligraphers, to an artist father and a grandfather who sculpted. Tatyaba Mane says his daughter could sit “for hours with paints and brushes every day,” even as a young child. “I always knew she would be a painter.”
The father’s simple prophecy came true; today thirty-five year old Varsha is a rising star on the Indian art firmament and the recipient of several government awards. She has lately shown in the American city of Chicago, a remarkable feat for a woman who grew up in a small Maharashtrian town and did not attend a big art school. Critics have described the beautiful women who populate almost all of her canvasses as “Ajantesque” and luminous with “eyes that talk.”
The talking eyes bit is important, because Varsha herself has always been speech and hearing impaired.
“She was denied admission for a course in art-teaching at a College in Satara because of her supposed inability to communicate” says husband Ramchandra Kharatmal, also a celebrated artist and a sort of Leonard Woolf to her Virginia, except the couple here are both remarkably even-tempered. “All for the good,” he says with a laugh, “She is better off as an artist than her teacher.”
The innocuous observation skims lightly over the struggle being differently abled means in India. Add to that the burden of chasing art, rather than a more “technical” career. “Varsha struggled with academics,” Ram says. The classroom and her teachers lacked the patience to accommodate her slow grace. Her supportive family and friends helped her pull through the difficult school years in Satara. But she started coming into her own only after she joined college, at the Kala Maha Vidyalaya, which was also the place where she and Ram met
“She had trouble with art theory,” says Ram, “But she was easily one of the best painters there. I was drawn to her almost at once.” Ram picked up sign language to communicate with Varsha and today watching them communicate seamlessly is almost like watching a synchronised ballet recital.
At the Kala Maha Vidyalaya, Varsha found her voice, so as to speak, the unique vehicle which distinguishes a great artist from the competent one. And that happened when she discovered the art of Maharashtrian legend A.A. Almekar. Almekar’s ornamental, stylised figures are drawn from folk art with a dynamic, boisterous energy that jumps off the canvas. Studying them freed Varsha from the artificial, forced rigour of realism.