J Swaminathan: A picture-perfect face whose paintings I was not too fond of, but then, whatever sells is supposed to be good

Despite many of my disagreements with several of his views, I liked his long face, unkempt hair, and long beard. So, for my lens, his looks were good, says the writer

Picture Talk/By NK Sareen

I first met J Swaminathan, the painter, at Dhoomi Mal Art Gallery in Connaught Place, New Delhi. The owner of the gallery, Ravi Jain, one of the three Jain brothers, was a very good friend of mine. I used to frequent the gallery just to meet him or take some pictures of paintings, mostly for Hindi weekly Saptahik Hindustan, which used to carry one full-page picture of celebrated artists, and the oldest gallery in Delhi had a good collection of their works.

Many of the artists used to frequent the gallery, and I used to meet them there. Sometimes Ravi himself used to call me to meet one artist or the other. I met FN Souza there, who became a lifelong friend. As Swamy lived in Delhi, and lots of his paintings used to be showcased in that gallery, he was a frequent visitor to the gallery, many a time with his wife in company.

Frankly speaking, I wasn’t too fond of his work, but whatever sells is considered good.

Once, when I went to the gallery, Swamy was already sitting there with his wife. We all started chatting, and it came to the subject of drinking. When I said that I couldn’t understand why some people drink so much that they lose their senses and many a time fall in drains, Swamy retorted: “What is the point of drinking if you do not fall into a drain?”

Because I didn’t agree with his statement, I didn’t talk any more on that subject.

Now, I’m not very sure whether someone had asked me for photographs of him or I had decided on my own to take some for future use. I think it was Eves Weekly, an English weekly from Bombay (now Mumbai), which once carried a two-page feature of six artists in one of their issues; they may have asked me for his picture. Despite many of my disagreements with several of his views, I liked his long face, unkempt hair, and long beard. So, for my lens, his looks were good. Many a time I have noticed that some very good-looking people do not photograph well (they are not photogenic), while some very ordinary looking people look so good in pictures. That is my lens’s bias, not mine.

Swamy usually smoked bidis (a thin cigarette or mini-cigar filled with tobacco flake) but I’m not sure if I had specifically asked him to smoke a cigarette for this picture or he had done so of his own volition. This picture was taken at his residence, and of that I’m pretty sure.

Later, Swaminathan went to Bhopal as the director of Bharat Bhawan, a multi-art arts complex comprising visual arts, folk arts, painting, performing arts, etc., facing a huge lake. Swamy was its first director, and now I have come to know that the road is named J Swaminathan Marg.

In 1984, when a lethal gas leaked from the Union Carbide’s pesticide plant in Bhopal, killing thousands of people, I was asked to get pictures from the site by a newspaper. I was in a dilemma where to go and stay for a couple of nights to get the pictures, because the newspaper wasn’t willing to bear the cost of my travel to Bhopal and my stay over.

I went to the gallery and talked to my friend Ravi Jain about my problem. He immediately booked a trunk call and spoke to J Swaminathan, who fixed a place for my stay. I went to Bhopal, stayed in the hotel room booked for me by Swamy, but it was already too late to get the news pictures of the gas tragedy. I didn’t find any worthwhile pictures since the site had already been cleared by then. The next day I went to meet J Swaminathan to thank him for his help and also see the Bharat Bhawan before returning back to Delhi.

[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.]