Important Notice

It was in the early 1970s that Krishen Khanna first explored the subject of bandwallas, or members of local brass bands engaged to play at weddings and other public ceremonies. Speaking of how he came to paint his first portraits of these musicians, Khanna explains that once, while driving out of his Delhi studio, the path was blocked by the marching band of a wedding procession. The image of these musicians dressed all in red with their big... It was in the early 1970s that Krishen Khanna first explored the subject of bandwallas, or members of local brass bands engaged to play at weddings and other public ceremonies. Speaking of how he came to paint his first portraits of these musicians, Khanna explains that once, while driving out of his Delhi studio, the path was blocked by the marching band of a wedding procession. The image of these musicians dressed all in red with their big brass instruments wrapped around them still remains as powerful for the artist today as it was that day in Delhi.

"The syncopated tunes intended for the jollification of the baraat (wedding party), the quotient of assertive maleness and vigour of the accompanying groom's party, the residual image of the British colonial march past, and sanguine military energy collapsed into a singular image on that warm Delhi afternoon. Positioning himself as a sympathetic spectator and a somewhat humourous narrator, Krishen Khanna has steadily painted the Bandwallah; the heroics of the street have been rendered with a deep humanist sympathy" (Gayatri Sinha, "Serenading Lajwanti", Krishen Khanna: Images in My Time, Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad, 2007, p. 27).

Using a palette dominated by bright reds and yellows, Khanna paints the bandwalla as a faceless tragicomic representative of the subaltern and a symbol of urban life in modern India. Though the artist portrays these men as cheery, their cheer is only part of their job. Their celebration is not spontaneous; it is just another mode of survival in the city. So when the music stops and the uniforms are removed, to what kind of lives do these men return?

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