Transiting through Bengaluru International Airport, this gem of a title caught my eye. A compact delight. Well-produced historical fiction for children with a botanical twist…how amazing is that?
Smit Zaveri’s story, based on decades of research by historians and botanists, is in the form of fictionalized letters of a father to his son. Zaveri gently weaves the story of Vishnuprasad, a master painter, an unsung hero of Company botanical art, who spends long periods of time away from home making botanical illustrations of the plants of interest to his colonial masters. His letters to his son Haru talk about where they were stationed, what they were painting, the importance of documenting the world around them, pride in his work, hope and aspirations of professional advancement and the hardships and mishaps as they travel to faithfully commit to paper plants and trees they see around them. The letters also reveal his worries for his family and his regret/remorse of missing landmark occasions in his family’s life—youngest child learning to write, daughter’s wedding…
I enjoyed the story as well as Zaveri’s short notes on botanical illustrations, naturalism and how to be a young naturalist. Her note on native master artists contextualizes the thriving pre-colonial artistic traditions such as miniature, Rajput and Mughal paintings. These, combined with foreign influences and life-like quality as required by scientific art, led to the emergence of the Kampani Kalam or Company Style. Botanical art struck roots and flourished.
Barkha Lohia describes her work as ‘delving into the unseen connections between humans and nature, inviting deeper reflection and a sense of wonder’. Barkha’s illustrations provide the strong visual narrative and the proverbial thousand unspoken words of how these men and expeditions lived, travelled, observed and what they painted.
Haru’s Paper Garden is a brilliant partnership between Smit Zaveri and Barkha Lohia.