New Delhi, Aug 15: After a nine-year struggle, businessman Naveen Jindal managed to get us average Indians the right to fly the National Flag. But both he and his wife Shallu were faced with another problem - creating awareness among the laity of this right. Shallu, an avid lover of the arts (she is a kathak and kuchipudi dancer), opened the Jindal Centre for Performing Arts two years back. They decided to dedicate its first five years to the tiranga. A small show, featuring five photographs, was held at Jindal House on Republic Day this year. These pictures have now been combined with works by 14 other artists for another exhibition at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre. The exhibition, curated by Peter Nagy, is on till August 19.

This show is titled Tiranga - Rights and Responsibilities. "We wanted people to be aware of their right to fly the Tricolour and its significance. Bhagwa or the saffron colour denotes renunciation; the white in the centre is light - the path of truth, and green shows our relation to the soil - the plant life. The Ashok chakra is the wheel of the law of Dharma," she explains. According to Shallu, the wheel denotes motion because there is movement in life. "India should not resist change anymore."
But it was no cakewalk for Shallu. "People are hesitant in depicting the tiranga in their paintings. When an artist had painted a bird perched atop the Ashoka pillar, the entire exhibition was banned. We sent our artists all court rulings. It was after loads of dialogues and phone calls that they attempted their pieces. We wanted to encourage everybody to be aware of their responsibility towards the Indian flag as well," explains Shallu.
The exhibition features different interpretations of the National Flag. Jitish Kallat's piece is Shallu's personal favourite. "In the last nine years that we have been married, Naveen's struggle became a part of me. When I met Jitish at the Jehangir Art Gallery, he had been planning to paint a man and a woman embracing each other, calling it Emotional People. When he heard my idea, he said it was just right for the theme. He painted the figures in the three colours with a chakra flashing by."

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Bharti Kher's tiger head done in fibreglass with tri-coloured snake/sperm-shaped bindis (her speciality) is especially eye-catching. Another of Shallu's favourites is Nilima Sheikh's wall hanging. "She has an unusual technique. Using a silk cloth as base, she paints the pattern on it and somebody else (Bharti Sharma in this case) embroiders it." It shows a traditional village scene with elephants, horses and temples. "It can be any village in India but the elephant holds the Tricolour in its trunk. Sheikh has painted the Tricolour without the chakra. The complete flag is shown flying atop a government building nearby," explains Shallu.

As for the photographs, Samar Jodha shows a flag hanging like a sari at a shop in a gali. Dayanita Singh, famous for her family portraits, clicked the Jindals with their son and daughter, flags in hand, at their residence. Ram Rahman has depicted an NRI celebration of Independence Day in the US. Shallu likes his second still, which captures a fat foreigner in a flea market trying to sell the Indian flag to an Indian girl, dressed in shorts, while a replica of the Taj Mahal forms the background.
The art exhibition, Naveen feels, is the best way to create awareness among people.
"A peaceful yet strong medium to tell people to vote for the nation, not for any political party," he adds.