Gogia Pasha: Making the Past Visible
The Le Meridien Delhi’s lobby is full. A number of high-profile events are happening at once, and there are plenty of handshakes, air kisses, and glass clinking noises. The scene is elegant, as it normally is at one of the best five-star hotels in Delhi. A huge, colorful banner promoting a performance by Gogia Pasha, dubbed the “World’s Greatest Magician” and “Gilly Gilly Wonderman,” is positioned in the midst of all of this.
The poster, a 1950s lithograph, features the famous magician’s turbaned head with his signature Cheshire-cat smile. Hand-painted by artist Bhuskute, it has lettering in Hindi, Urdu, and English that indicates how popular Pasha was at the time. It transports the viewer back to that era, when people were enthralled with Pasha and his performances in enormous tents that drew crowds from far and wide.
As part of the exhibition called “Journey Through Time: +1 Day, +1 Story,” there are thirty other historic and wonderful posters on display, of which the magic show poster is only one. All of the posters—some of which date back to the 1920s—come from Tarun Thakral’s, the executive director of Le Meridien in Delhi, archives. In addition to being an accomplished hotelier with more than 35 years of expertise in both India and outside hospitality, Thakral also has a fondness for antiques. In 2013, he established the Heritage Transport Museum in Gurugram, which now has over 3,500 carefully chosen artifacts showcasing India’s rich transportation past.
Nearly all of the hand-drawn and painted posters are considered works of art by Thakral, who sees beyond their practical use as advertising. According to him, “every item on exhibit offers a glimpse into the artistic expressions, consumer trends, and social evolution of the times they were produced in.” They are “time capsules” that provide a glimpse into the busy markets of the past and show how advertising has changed over time.
Products and services from local to foreign vendors are featured on the posters. Along with commercials for Air-India and Air-France, which are mostly minimalistic and some very abstract, there are ads for “Sri Kaliswari Fireworks” in Sivakasi and “Anandha Rosewater” in Madras, Tamil Nadu, which feature richly bejeweled ladies and exquisite flower arrangements. According to Thakral, half of these posters are from India, while the other half are from other countries including the US, the UK, Germany, and France.
The exhibition is an initiative to encourage a preservationist mindset, according to Thakral, who claims that the posters are a part of a bigger collection he is developing that includes, among other things, calendar art and other pieces of bazaar art. During the epidemic, he developed a passion in antique posters, which has only increased. The majority of these posters were created by artists by hand and then printed using lithographic methods. These methods are now mostly obsolete. These pieces, which are very valuable both historically and artistically, must be conserved or they will go forever. In addition, I’m digitizing and categorizing the items I’ve gathered,” Thakral said.
Another poster, from the 1920s, features two happy Buddhist monks and is a creation of British artist V Veevers. It advertises Darjeeling for the “Eastern Bengal Railway.” “His granddaughter, who resides in the US, saw the Veevers poster that I had posted on Facebook and messaged me, stating that he was hired by the Indian Railways to paint. She also shared additional details about the artist,” adds Thakral. According to him, the interest in collecting is maintained by these occasions when links between the past and present are made and people get to know historical artists better.
