Work · early 1980s
Luqman Ali
Luqman Ali is a man who will not play along. Taken from a long poem by Soumitra Mohan, he became Jai Zharotia’s restless double: hero and villain, dreamer and trickster, at war with the false values around him.
Working as an illustrator for the Hindi edition of the Patriot, Jai Zharotia came to know many poets. One was Soumitra Mohan of the Akavita (“anti-poetry”) movement, whose long poem Luqman Ali follows a man who rebels against his own society because he cannot live with its double standards.
The works are drawn and washed in ink and watercolour on paper: a bearded, heavy-set figure in a long coat, a horse or an animal close beside him, faces half lost in mist. Luqman is chased by his own shadow, swings a sword at his own desires, and never quite wins. For Jai he stood for the friction inside every person, between good and evil, escape and surrender.
Most of the Luqman Ali works on paper are today in the collection of DAG, New Delhi.
“My eyes fly with me. But how? And where? I want to take a boat across, to fly to the stars, even through the skies to the unknown.”Jai Zharotia
Works from this series will be added soon.