Farewell to Avtaarjeet Dhanjal: An Artist, a Friend, a Visionary: Prof Pritam Singh
By Pritam Singh
Our dear friend Avtaarjeet Dhanjal (86), an internationally renowned sculptor, is no longer with us. He breathed his last on Saturday (22nd March) morning in Telford Hospital. We met him for the first time at a Punjab Research Group (UK) conference just a few months after we arrived in the UK, and our friendship started that day. He invited us to his 50th birthday party at his lovely riverside house, named Nadi Kinare, in Ironbridge, Shropshire, and we attended his 85th birthday party at the same house when his health was becoming fragile. He attended our daughter Tanya's wedding in Chandigarh in January 2018, along with his French friend, Danielle Blanc. As a result, he became known to our entire family and many friends from different parts of the world.
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His life story is remarkable, and his lifestyle was unconventional. He lost many friends from Indian/Punjab backgrounds partly due to their discomfort with his way of life. I was deeply touched when he told me on the phone a few months ago: 'You and Meena were the only friends from Punjab/Indian backgrounds who didn't abandon me. You did criticise me sometimes, but I knew that your criticisms were for my welfare and not to undermine me. You are younger than I am but wiser than I am. Please come and meet me. I want to discuss some things which I can't discuss with anyone else about setting up a trust etc.' I promised that we would visit him as soon we were free from the current deadlines hanging over us. I had thought that he had been a fitness fanatic and sturdy (partly due to his sculpting work) and would pull through for a longer time. I feel sad now that, in this long association of friendship, I did not take him as seriously as I should have when he asked me to come and meet him.
He was a loyal and committed friend to us. When I once considered setting up a fund to award the best Doctoral Student Presentation at each annual or biannual PRG conference, he was one of the close friends I consulted, and he contributed to the fund. He was a regular attendee at the PRG conferences; posted here is one photograph at the PRG conference at Oxford Brookes University in March 2018. Later, in 2022/23, when Wolfson College, Oxford, was setting up the Guru Nanak Junior Research Fellowship, he made a generous contribution and a board in the college has his name among the donors.
He came from a very humble rural artisan family background. His first job after passing school was to paint shop signboards in Moga town in Malwa Punjab. He eventually rose to be an internationally known artist with his sculpting work publicly displayed in the UK, India, Brazil and Serbia/Yugoslavia.
He summed up his life in a FB post fairly recently as below:
The Grosvenor Gallery of London, which represents Indian artists like M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, and other masters, its director, Mr Moore, approached me two months ago with a proposal to show my works in his gallery following the brief correspondence visited me this morning, and offered me the contract to deal with my artwork.
I am grateful to life; I achieved almost everything in life I dreamt of, but in its time,
Well, a friend of mine used to say, “Jo jo, so so, jab jab, tab tab. Means whatever, whatever, whenever, whenever. Millions of my fellow countrymen of India die ever fulfilling their dreams, and It's almost fifty years ago I came to the UK, with a dream, like many others; according to one Indian Artists Association in the UK, there came nearly three hundred artists, men and women came to UK, but only 4-5 made their living as artists, I would say, life was kind to me, I earned my living as an artist except an early couple of years.
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Though, like everything in my life, it came in a haphazard manner, I was engaged at 8 and married at 18 (though not my choosing). Had a near-death accident at 21, then I decided to take control of my life. I went to Art School at 25, left India at 30, and came to the UK at 34. Divorced at 54. Today, at nearly 85, I found my place in the list of senior artists.
Thank you, life. I saw this day before leaving this world. The last thing I plan to do is to set up a trust to help others on a similar path; I am ready to donate all my artwork, as well as my house, to the trust, bow my head and say goodbye to this world contented. My friends, I am leaving the world, but I will sit back and let life take its own course.
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Prof Pritam Singh, Professor Emeritus Oxford Brookes Business School, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
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