Paresh Hazra has captured in full blood-letting in Nandigram over the past year, in his works currently on show at the Right Lines Art Gallery in Indiranagar. The struggle of peasants who almost lost their land, the anomie of the poor, the violence-hit women and children are his subjects.

Most faces in Hazra’s paintings are grim. One of them captures the fight between farmers over land. Ironically, the farmers fight it out with sickles and hammers (which is the symbol of the Communist Party). Another work shows a mother clinging onto her child, almost as if she trying to shield her child from death. Bloodshed and police vans, gun toting mobs are common place.

Hazra has even made a documentary entitled, ‘The Soil’s Wail’, based on life in Nandigram where the people have learnt to cope with terror. He has also written a poetry about a construction worker who builds beautiful homes but has no roof over his head, about a man who fixes umbrellas while his own would have holes all over it, about the farmer who grows vegetables but has belly sticking to his back.

“It’s not the rich in the villages who are exploiting the poor but the urbanites who are exploiting the poor,” feels Hazra. Even though Hazra moved to the City more than 20 years ago, his heart is tucked deep in his motherland.
The smell of damp earth, the boundless sky, the humming of bees are etched in his mind. “I’ve had a wonderful childhood. I grew up in Nandigram and have been witness to the transition from bad to worse. People live in fear in Nandigram. They get dragged into the politics of two parties CPM and the Congress,” Hazra says and adds, “the complexities, conflicts, aggression and the generally sad state of my home state pains me. Every person has his or her own way of protesting against injustice. I am a painter, my brush, my canvas, my colours, are my only weapons.”

Paresh Hazra’s exhibition is on at the Gallery till march 13 between 10 am and 6 pm.