Head to this 3-D painting exhibition at Worli’s Nehru Centre Art Gallery

Vinod Kanjwani works on his acrylic painting . Pics/Shadab Khan

The Taj Mahal had wowed a young boy from Gwalior on that one day in the year when all lights of the monument are turned off, and it dazzles like a pearl under the soft shine of a hovering full moon. "I have witnessed this phenomenon several times," recalls 73-year-old Vinod Kanjwani, who now resides in Worli. And so naturally, when he picked up the paintbrush years after he gave it up due to financial responsibilities, the surreal beauty of the monument was one of his first subjects that he created.

His self-taught style of art, he tells us, is 3-D painting on canvas. "I used chabutra (a raised platform) to create the monument against the flat background of a dark sky. Pearls are used atop domes too," Kanjwani explains. This is one of the 20 paintings by the septuagenarian that will be displayed in his first-ever exhibition at Worli's Nehru Centre Art Gallery, starting today.

3-D painting of kalpavriksha made of real rudraksh

"Nanu (Sindhi: grandfather) never got the support to focus on his passion. He was always working," his 20-year-old grand-daughter, Vidhi Madnani reveals. "When he was in college, he worked in a medical store so he could pay the fees. He was a government employee all his life, and would keep long hours to provide for his family in Gwalior. It wasn't until he retired as senior treasurer, Treasury Office, at Gorkhi in Gwalior in 2009 that he had time on hand. Except that he suddenly had too much of it to spare, and he began to feel frustrated all the time," she shares.

In 2020, during the lockdown, Kanjwani and his wife moved to Mumbai to live with their son and his family. His family suggested that he return to his old passion. "Since then, he's been unstoppable. His day begins and ends with art. We have to scold him to leave his paintbrush aside, and eat his meals on time," chuckles Madnani, who spends most of her time with her nanu when she's not attending college lectures. "He has several physical constraints due to his age. For instance, he experiences mild tremors in his hands, which isn't ideal for artists. Even if something is off with his paintings, he never discards them. He's a jugaadu person who will find a way out to make it work by either layering it or creating something else altogether."

"I think the city has made him a social, party-loving person. He has a huge group in the building, where people his age socialise at least once a week. They dance, watch movies, share jokes and discuss Sindhi food," she says. He has found the support he was deprived of all his life. Kanjwani says, "In fact, it was one of my friends who knew about the art gallery and encouraged me to get in touch with them for an exhibition."

Among the 20 artworks on display are seven horses for luck, a portrait of Shri Krishna and Ganpati Bappa, and a 3-D golden kalpavriksha, made of real rudraksh for good vaastu that Kanjwani vouches is so stable that, "it cannot be pulled apart by the sheer force of human hands."

Till: August 14; 11 am to 7 pm
At: Nehru Centre Art Gallery, Discovery of India Building, ground floor, Worli.
Log on to: @nanuspaintings376