The Genius That Was Mola Ram

 

Painting of Mola Ram showing a girl approaching a black buck and playing a sitar (Courtesy: Victoria and Albert Museum Collection

Just a few days ago I was going through a fascinating book written by Mukandi Lal about the Garhwal school of Pahari painting. Though the school, which took off in Raja Prithipat Shah’s reign around 1658, the school became associated with one man and his family - the legendary Mola Ram. 

Mola Ram was born in 1743, and went on to live for a whole 90 years. He was essentially a painter as part of the family profession that was goldsmith (Sunar) by caste, and was based out of Srinagar, which used to be the capital of Garhwal state till Tehri (which now lies submerged) came up due to a malevolent move by the British East India Company.

Mola Ram stands out as a painter as per art historians as he managed to create his own signature style that took elements of the Kangra school of art and brought in interesting layers to the art form from other schools. The base of the Kangra school was a result of his exposure to the style when Mola Ram visited Kangra during the reign of Maharaja Sansar Chand Katoch, the man under whom the Kangra school of painting flourished beyond comparison. This was also the period when other schools like Nurpur, Mankot, Basohli, Chamba, Mandi and Guler were also starting to flourish, each bringing out a flavor of its own. Being a contemporary of the famous Nainsukh of Guler among others, it took guts to be able to flesh out a style of his own. And yet, Mola Ram managed to do this and much more, be it the tone of colours he used, the exquisite use of flowers that came up in his paintings, the beautiful use of the flowers painted with great detail, or even the sensuous oeuvre that the women in his paintings exhibited unlike others styles.

The Fame of Mola Ram

Mola Ram had several eccentricities about him. One of the most interesting facts, as Mukandi Lal had brought out, was the fact that Mola Ram tended to present himself not as a painter but as a poet. In a painting titled Mastani, Mola Ram chose to describe himself as a poet and painter, driven perhaps by the consciousness of social hierarchy that being a painter brought with it. Of course, he did write poetry, when his drawings were not considered good enough as compared to the outsider painters who had turned up in the Garhwal darbar. To that extent, it is interesting to point out a phrase from a poem written by Mola Ram in 1769 that betrayed his bitterness and jealousy towards these ‘outsiders’ as noted by another art critic and historian W G Archer.

'These are hard times. The officials and courtiers tell lies. Their eyes lie. The clerks lie. The paper lies. The ink lies. Everything is lies'.

This in all likelihood must have been a reason for him to visit Kangra and learn the art, which eventually transformed him into a painter not just popular in Garhwal but far and beyond. During the Gurkha occupation of Garhwal, Mola Ram was personally visited by the Governor Hastidal Chautaria in 1803, having heard of him in Kantipur, Nepal.

Mola Ram, The Poet and Historian

Mola Ram was not just a renowned artist; he was also a historian of his times and a prolific poet in his own right. Historian O.C. Handa has pointed out that Mola Ram had written the historical work Garhrajvansh Ka Itihas (History of the Garhwal royal dynasty) which is the only source of information about several Garhwal rulers. 

An interesting incident was narrated by Mukandi Lal that talks about his poetic skill’s abilities. Apparently, when the Garhwali governor of Dehradun had rebelled during the reign of Raja Jaikrit Shah, the king himself went to Mola Ram’s chitrashala (studio) asking him to go to the darbar of Raja Jagat Prakash of Nahan for help. Instead of going himself, Mola Ram composed a poem and sent across his messenger Dhani Ram to Nahan. The poem’s impact was significant enough, for help from Nahan did arrive, and the rebellion was quashed.

Other works written by Mola Ram include the Garhrajvanshkavya, Ran Bahadur Chandrika, Shamsher-e-Jang Chandrika, and Bakhtawar Yash Chandrika. Mola Ram had good relations with the Gurkha administration that has been a controversial period for many in Garhwal. When Kaji Bakhtawar Singh Basnyat reached Srinagar in 1810, Mola Ram had written down a description of the Gorkhali administration since 1804, which impressed him to the point of restoring the jagirs that the family of Mola Ram had lost during the Shah rule. But this was taken away eventually during the British rule, who took over the Srinagar region, which forced the king to change his capital.

How Insanity Killed the Garhwal School for Good

Mola Ram’s family, having lost patronage support, eventually started to look at other professions, including their caste affiliated tradition of goldsmithery. One of his sons started to draw for the British, having come into their employ. The family had two more generations associated with the art; however, they did not achieve the same grandeur or glory, owing to their inferior talents as compared to the peer.

Another reason for the family completely abandoning the practice was a strange belief that had come up. People who associated with the profession of painting went insane. Two of Mola Ram’s grandsons who had become painters after becoming insane also tore up a large number of Mola Ram’s original creations in bouts of insanity. The family and its subsequent generations then came to believe that the profession was cursed for them, thus finishing off the tradition for good. 

Many people, thanks to paintings being taken out of Garhwal over periods of time, never bothered to identify the separate art style that the Garhwal school had managed to create. It was the famed art critic Ananda Coomaraswamy who first shed light on it, leading to its discovery and subsequent identification as an art style distinct from the Kangra qalam. However, it is a pity that we neither have all his paintings, nor we had any continuity of the flicker that had lit up as a blazing forest fire in the form of Mola Ram.