When Ash turned Monalisa

Actor Lalit Parimoo's veteran uncle and the former Dean of Baroda Faculty of Fine Arts, seventy- two year old painter, Ratan Parimoo, exhibited his works in Mumbai's Jehangir Art Gallery, after a break of nearly nine years. The theme of Parimoo's Chaurapanchashika titled 'Iconography of a Nayika', represents what Ratan Parimoo calls his 'style of the old age.'

Parimoo adapted Leonardo da Vinci's Monalisa as the archetypal female and went on to view Aishwarya Rai as the archetypal female who could also be compared metaphorically with well-known or familiar female characters from both European Art History and Indian Art History. Thus there was the juxtaposition with the image of Venus, of Apsara, of Radha, and also the personages of the paintings of the famous painter of Kerala, Raja Ravi Varma, such as his Saraswati and portrait of Maharani.

Lalit Parimoo's entire telly and theatre circle of actors including Chief Guest Mukesh Khanna, Lalit Parimoo, Mohsin Akhtar, Mikhill, Ranjeet Jha, Ankit Saluja, Shakti Arora, Kapil Khadiwala, dir Saurabh Sengupta, Swaaty Asthana, Vishal Chauhan, Mauli Ganguly, artists Ananya Banerji, Amisha Mehta, DJ Vipin, curator Sunil Chauhan, Anil Dharkar, Ashwin Dhar, Raj Kanojia, and others had a ball. And Ash graciously smiled from the water colour works at her admiring co-fraternity. -(SAMPURN)