DRESSED in an immaculate three-piece suit, offset by a bohemian tweed jacket and a silver Shaivite pendant, painter Sakti Burman chooses dosa over a sandwich. While that might sound like an NRI cliche, this Paris-based artist is anything but. Famous for the fresco effect that characterises his canvases, Burman draws his influences from sources as varied as the South of France to the streets of Kolkata. Take Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec and the Italian Frescos. Add the folk art of Puri, Durga Puja processions and the lyrical fantasy of Tagore’s verse—and you have a Burman. Burman left Kolkata at 22 to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. But he didn’t have any definite plans of settling down in the land of cafes and street side art. ‘‘Sometimes things just happen. In today’s age, I would’ve probably thought a lot more about my departure. But back then there was a spontaneous desire that governed decisions,’’ he recalls. Paris got him his first solo exhibition at Piccadilly, a London gallery that still shows his work. And when he fell in love with French painter Maite Delteil, the deal was pretty much sealed. ‘‘Meeting Maite did have a lot to do with my decision to settle in France. Who knows, I may have returned to India,’’ reminisces the man who had French belles visiting him for sitar lessons—post Ravi Shankar’s 1956 concert at Cite University. He’d left because Mumbai then offered very few opportunities. But the call of the homeland endured. Burman returned after a hiatus of five years in 1968 for an exhibition of water colours at Pundole Art Gallery. And kept coming back. If it wasn’t for a show, it was to visit his brother’s family (niece Jayasri Burman and son-in-law Paresh Maity), eat fish curry and sing old Bengali songs. Vintage Burman
