Veena Adige meets an 80-year-old painter suffering from Parkinson’s disease who is all set to hold his solo paintings’ exhibition in March.
Eighty-year-old Vishwanath Ram Kantak is a man of grit and perseverance. His hands shake, his back is bent, and he has trouble walking as he has Parkinson’s disease, yet, when he holds a brush in his hands, these suddenly disappear. And beautiful dignified strokes emanate and form a lovely picture. He uses the best paints, the most suitable brushes, and good canvases which make his creations neat and clean masterpieces. In fact, Kantak has set his eyes on exhibiting his lovely paintings at Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai from March 21 this year for six days. He has completed 40 huge paintings and 35 smaller ones and is still going strong.
“I will continue painting till the day of my exhibition,” he says. And thereby he shows the way to others that age and disability are no excuses for success and ambition. If you have enthusiasm and aim, nothing is impossible in this world. Born in Goa in 1935, Kantak came to Mumbai and studied at the J J School of Arts and used his skills as a commercial artist for a few years. He worked with several agencies in Mumbai and Kolkata, even as an art director. He then chose to be a freelancer, reaching Ramkrishna Mission in the USA where he lived for a decade before returning to India. Though his son lives in the US and comes to India often, Kantak has chosen to spend his time at Shantikunj, a senior citizens’ home run by the Vidhyadhiraj Charitable Trust in Panvel , where he arrived in 2011.
This story is from the February 2017 edition of Dignity Dialogue.
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This story is from the February 2017 edition of Dignity Dialogue.
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