In between business meets and global buyouts, Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata made time to meet painter Laxman Shrestha in his Mumbai home three times in the last two months. The visits were not because he wanted another Shrestha for the walls of his personal office cabin, which has many, but because actually — for the first time — the architect-turned tycoon had to test out his skills at brushwork.

So, when the collaborative abstract work signed by the two men got snapped up for Rs 70 lakh at the Khushii charity art auction on Friday night, the 1,400-crowd sat on the edges of their seats and wondered: Can brushes in the hands of the Big and the Powerful send art prices shooting northwards?

It can and did, as the auction at the 2 Rajaji Marg residence of British High Commissioner Michael Arthur proved. In four hours, Khushii, a Delhi-based NGO that works for the under-privileged, raised Rs 15 crore from some 121 works — a painterly collaboration between 100 artists and 110 eminent citizens from all walks of like. On hindsight, the pre-auction target of Rs 6 crore looked pretty modest.

The rich and powerful who dipped their fingers in paint and turpentine included Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Planning Commission chief Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Tina Ambani.

The partnering party also included writers Shobhaa De, fashion designer Ritu Kumar, socialite Nina Ranjan Pillai and new-age guru Ravi Shankar. They were all pulled together by the magnetism of the current art boom, a cause and ripple effect guided by a few men like Tata who turned painter overnight.

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