Hyderabad's Srishti art gallery unveils 15th edition of Emerging Palettes
The final lineup — Aaryama Somayaji, Deepanwita Das, Farhin Afza, Hasan Ali Kadiwala, Manu N (Manushya), Moumita Basak, Nayanjyoti Barman, Nirmal Mondal, Pathik Sahoo, Vishnu CR, and Yogesh Hadiya — was chosen by a jury comprising Amit Kumar Jain, Varunika Saraf, Jaiveer Johal, and Lakshmi Nambiar, who also helms Srishti as founder and curator.
This year's curatorial focus, Pushing Boundaries of Materiality, is compelling. The show highlights how artists are thinking beyond canvas and conventional form, and engaging with textiles, ceramics, steel, found objects, and video. From narratives in stitched installations to the reuse of discarded materials, each practice becomes a dialogue between form and idea, reminding viewers that the material can become a narrative force.
For Nirmal Mondal, a graduate of Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, that narrative emerges from clay. Working in Santiniketan, he draws on the terracotta temples of Murshidabad and the dwindling craftspeople who once built them. 'My work is a way of conserving the stories I grew up with,' he says, adding, 'Ceramic holds memory better than paper.'
Manu N (Manushya), who studied at the Bengaluru School of Visual Arts and Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, blends industrial and natural materials to explore the vulnerability and endurance carried in both Nature and the human body. In his stainless steel Inflorescence, floral structures form branching clusters and patterns. The artwork reflects his interest in botanical systems and the small-scale industry he runs. Meanwhile, his organic, coral-like forms stem from a desire to create works that 'symbolise the creation of life.' He explains, 'Salt and terracotta symbolise land and ocean. That duality reflects where we come from.'
Farhin Afza, who received her MVA in Graphic Arts from University of Hyderabad in 2024, anchors her multimedia work in the rituals of Muslim domestic life. Her piece Dastarkhwaan reimagines the everyday dining spread as a political site. 'My work explores ideas of home, memory and identity,' she says. 'It is personal, at the same time political.' Incorporating everyday domestic objects, video, and textiles, Afza's work speaks softly but forcefully to belonging and marginality.
Aaryama Somayaji, who holds a B.Des from National Institute of Design, Andhra Pradesh, and an MA in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, creates dreamlike works rooted in folklore, oral traditions, and imagined memory. Her Heirloom Recipe Chart series is in acrylic wash and watercolour pencil on banana-fibre paper she made a decade ago. Her work is a 'maximalist approach to abstraction' and explores the language of recipes as cultural inheritance. 'They are sort of gestures or whispers that are told to you as recipes... add a little bit of this, a little bit of that,' she explains. A culmination of ingredients, approximations, and even gaps where history has erased memory or left space for future generations to fill in themselves.
Other featured artists present equally potent material narratives. Deepanwita Das evokes botanical decay and emotional vulnerability through layered lithographs and stitching. Hasan Ali Kadiwala offers quiet, poetic etchings around displacement and spiritual longing.
Moumita Basak uses recycled textiles and embroidery to reflect on gender and ecological justice. Nayanjyoti Barman builds fragile assemblages from plywood and wire to explore migration and memory in Northeast India. Pathik Sahoo works with iron, brass, and tin to reconstruct vanished rural festivals and communal rhythms. Vishnu CR transforms wood into large-scale sculptures inspired by carpentry traditions and childhood puzzles. Yogesh Hadiya layers satire and metaphor into dense woodcuts championing social critiques.
(Emerging Palettes 15 is on view at Srishti Art Gallery, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, till July first week)
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This has reignited a debate over the legacy of Gopal Patha, a person seen through divided some portray Gopal Chandra Mukherjee as a saviour who protected Hindus during the riots, others brand him "a ferocious criminal", according to a report in The Indian Express from 1946, Gopal Patha emerged as one of Calcutta's most feared musclemen with nearly 800 men under his command, who in 1947 defied Gandhi's repeated calls to surrender Patha, who was one of the forces that saved Calcutta from falling into Pakistani hands, also sheltered Hindu families and widows in distress. It was against this backdrop of unchecked bloodshed and administrative paralysis that Gopal Patha stepped in, rallying his men to retaliate and defend Hindu localities from Muslim DIRECT ACTION DAY TURNED BLOODY; KILLED 10,000 IN CALCUTTAIn August 1946, Calcutta was engulfed in communal violence following the Muslim League's call for Direct Action Day to demand a separate Muslim homeland, has to be remembered that Bengal by then had already seen a partition, in 1905."Larke Lenge Pakistan (We'll fight and take Pakistan)!," the slogan rang out from Bowbazar More to Harrison Road, echoing through Calcutta's narrow streets, according to a research paper by academic Debjani other than having a huge Muslim population, was also the place which, according to historians, "saw the first articulation of political consciousness" among them. It was at Dhaka that the All India Muslim League was born to "secure the interests of Muslims of the subcontinent"."India suffered the biggest Moslem-Hindu riot in its history," reported the Time Magazine on August 26, League chief Mohamed Ali Jinnah chose the 18th day of Ramzan to observe 'Direct Action Day' in protest against Britain's plan for Indian independence, which he argued ignored long-standing Muslim demands for a separate intended as a peaceful show of strength, the day quickly descended into chaos, leaving Calcutta's sweltering streets soaked in blood."Rioting Moslems went after Hindus with guns, knives and clubs, looted shops, stoned newspaper offices, set fire to Calcutta's British business district. Hindus retaliated by firing at Moslem mosques and miles of Moslem slums. Thousands of homeless families roamed the city in search of safety and food (most markets had been pilfered or closed). Police blotters were filled with stories of women raped, mutilated and burned alive," noted the Time Magazine report from August 26, riots, lasting four days, claimed an estimated 10,000 lives, with Hindus bearing the brunt of the initial attacks by Chief Minister, Husseyn Shahid Suhrawardy, was accused of failing to curb the violence, allegedly assuring Muslim mobs of chaos set the stage for Gopal Patha's PATHA: BUSINESSMAN, WRESTLER AND MUSCLEMANGopal Chandra Mukherjee was known as 'Gopal Patha', as his family owned a goat-meat shop in Calcutta. Patha stands for a male goat in was a wrestler and a businessperson, by one of Calcutta's musclemen of the 1940s, rose to prominence during the 1946 riots. As violence unfolded, the 33-year-old came to be seen as the protector of the Hindu community."He was very ferocious," recalled SK Bhattacharjee, a sub-inspector at Calcutta's Lalbazar police headquarters during the Great Calcutta Killing of August 1946, as quoted in a 1997 Indian Express report by academic and journalist Andrew Whitehead."Gopal Patha looked like a gentleman. He was a criminal, but he was very helpful to the poor. During the riots, he came out to rescue Hindus," Bhattacharjee Patha, a member of the revolutionary group Anushilan Samiti and admirer of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, organised Hindu youths to counter Muslim League mobs. He reportedly armed young men to protect Hindu lives and properties.'ANSWER BRUTALITY WITH BRUTALITY.' WHAT GOPAL PATHA SAID ON VIOLENCE AND DUTYGopal Patha organised and mobilised the gang, because he believed it was the need of the hour. They equipped themselves with knives, swords, machetes, sticks, and iron rods, while Gopal carried two American pistols tucked into his waistband."I went round the saw mills and factories. I set an amount, sometimes Rs 1,000, sometimes Rs 5,000. They paid up. Then I declared: for one murder, you get Rs 10, for a half-murder, Rs 5. That's how we got started," Patha told actions were also directed at preventing Calcutta (Kolkata) being turned into a part of Pakistan by force."It was a very critical time for the country; the country had to be saved. If we become a part of Pakistan, we will be oppressed. So I called all my boys and said, this is the time we have to retaliate, and you have to answer brutality with brutality," Patha was quoted as saying by academic Debjani Sengupta."If you come to know that one murder has taken place, you commit 10 murders. That was the order for my boys... It was basically my duty... I had to help those in distress," Gopal Patha told the Indian Express in PATHA DEFIED GANDHI THRICE ON ARMS SURRENDERA year later, when MK Gandhi visited Calcutta, still smouldering from riots and bracing for more as Bengal was gripped by the horrors of Partition, Gopal Patha refused to surrender arms despite the leader's repeated August 1947, when Bengal saw widespread Partition violence, Gandhi reached Calcutta and advocated disarmament to foster peace."People came with their weapons and placed them at the feet of Gandhiji. Shabbily-dressed people came with swords, daggers and country-made guns," journalist Sailen Chatterjee told the newspaper in deified calls to lay down arms thrice and even questioned Gandhi."Gandhi called me twice... I didn't go. The third time, some local Congress leaders told me that I should at least deposit some of my arms... I went there. I saw people coming and depositing weapons which were of no use to anyone, out-of-order pistols, that sort of thing. Then Gandhi's secretary said to me: 'Gopal, why don't you surrender your arms to Gandhiji?' I replied, 'With these arms I saved the women of my area; I saved the people. I will not surrender them," Gopal Patha told the newspaper in 1997."Where was Gandhiji, I said, during the Great Calcutta Killing? Where was he then? Even if I've used a nail to kill someone, I won't surrender even that nail," he WAS GOPAL PATHA REALLY? DID HE HATE MUSLIMS?Gopal Patha still remains one of the most debated figures of Calcutta's turbulent from being a one-dimensional communal leader, historians argue his role must be understood in the specific context of the Great Calcutta Killing of Sandip Bandopadhyay, who interviewed Gopal Patha, stressed that Patha was "not a divisive character", noting that his immediate concern was to defend his locality from Muslim League-led attacks.A goat-meat shop owner by profession, Patha regularly dealt with Muslim traders and "never bore a grudge against Muslims", historian Sandip Bandopadhyay told The Hindu in 2014. Yet, when riots reached central Calcutta, he mobilised Hindu youths, training them to also sheltered Hindu families and widows from marauding Muslim mobs and in the aftermath of the said, Gopal Patha carries a dual legacy as both protector and aggressor. His actions reflected a commitment to survival over non-violence at a time when violence had become the norm. Yet his legacy remains contentious. For some, he was a hoodlum whose violent retaliation only escalated the bloodshed. But for many Hindus, he was a hero who filled a leadership void during the Great Calcutta Killing.- EndsMust Watch advertisement
