‘An address in Mumbai no taxi wallah would have dared to refuse you’

I liked the paintings of KK Hebbar (1911-1996), the former chairman of Lalit Kala Academy, but I admired his pen & ink drawings more; they were fabulous and fluid. He was a master of drawing

Picture Talk/By NK Sareen

I first met KK Hebbar at his solo show at the AIFACS Gallery at Rafi Marg in New Delhi. The eminent painter who hailed from Karnataka was a tall, skinny, very soft-spoken, and a man of few words.

I liked his paintings but I admired his pen & ink drawings more; they were fabulous and fluid. He was a master of drawing. He was much older than me but our first meeting turned into a lifelong friendship.

When I came to know that he had become the chairman of Lalit Kala Academy in Delhi, I went and met him. One evening at the Academy, instead of going straight to the chairman’s room, I let his secretary know that I had come to meet him. The secretary called him up on the intercom and said, “one Sareen had come to meet him”.

To my surprise, Mr. Hebbar himself came to the secretary’s room, put his hand on my shoulder, and said I should have come straightaway to his room. He was such a genial and humble soul, I realised that day, considering it was only my second meeting with him.

Once, while in Bombay (now Mumbai, of course), I just called him to say I was in the city. He asked me how long I was going to stay in Bombay, inviting me to visit his residence, and asking me to join him for lunch. I told him that I was a vegetarian, so he need not bother. “I am a strict vegetarian myself,” he retorted, insisting I must take some time out to visit him for lunch.

He lived in Kala Nagar, in Bandra East – a suburb of Bombay – right opposite the house of Balasaheb Thackeray, the Shiv Sena supremo. He had told me on the phone that if any taxi driver refused to take me to his place, I should just let him know that I wanted to go to Balasaheb’s house and no taxi wallah would dare to refuse me.

This picture of ‘KK’ – as I liked to call him – was taken with available light in his studio in Bombay, at his residence, after I had lunch with him and his wife. That was my third meeting with him. While I was leaving, he gifted me an autographed copy of his book of paintings, which is, of course, one of my prized possessions.

Whenever he was in Delhi, alone or with his wife, they would both drop by my home for lunch or dinner when convenient to us both.

Before his demise in 1996, we both exchanged several letters and talked over the phone many a time from my frequent visits to Bombay or from Delhi. In his last days he was severely affected by migraines and also had difficulty in speaking. When several of my calls to his residence went unanswered, I wrote to him inquiring about his health.

Many weeks later I was shocked to get a letter from his daughter informing me that he had left for his heavenly abode.

In this column, ‘Picture Talk’, veteran photo journalist NK Sareen, a former Photo Editor at Expanse International and a writer, shines light on some of the pictures of personalities he has clicked over the years, with a touch of nostalgia. The views expressed here are the author’s own and The News Porter bears no responsibility for the same.