It was 1947, the year of India’s Independence. I was in my second year at the JJ School of Art, Mumbai, when a wiry bespectacled young man was introduced to me by Dean Palsikar. It was Tyeb Mehta. I was a year ahead of him and Palsikar asked me to show Tyeb around the faculty.

I soon found that he did not need my help since he was a very self-sufficient young man. However, we would meet at the canteen to discuss art with Palsikar who was a mentor to both of us. We were also loosely affiliated to the Progressive Group of Artists; but like me, Tyeb was a loner and was happier being on his own — though we agreed with the Progressive’s manifesto and embraced Modernism wholeheartedly.

Tyeb was never afraid of hard work and he even did a stint at a hospital caring for the sick. As a human being and as an artist, he always cared for people in distress and working at a hospital put him in touch with the suffering of the poor. He made many sketches and drawings, some of which were very realistic. Today, I am sure that everything, including these sketches, would be worth a lot in the market, even if it did not fetch him any money at the time when he needed it.

Like me, Tyeb straddled both abstraction and figurative works. However, I could see him moving towards figurative works, a strong point in his art.

... contd.