Vajpayee takes a 'panoramic view' of Nepal

The Pioneer
05 July, 2002

Unpalatable realities like international terrorism and Maoist insurgency were not the only issues of convergent interest during Nepal King Gyanendra's stay in New Delhi last week. Noted painter Serbjeet Singh's palette served the visiting monarch a panoramic canvas depicting a far more ancient entity shared by India and Nepal -- the beauty of the Himalayas.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee presented Serbjeet Singh's "Nepal Panorama" to King Gyanendra to mark the monarch's maiden visit to India in his latest capacity. In a letter to the King, Mr Vajpayee wrote, "As a souvenir of the first official visit of Your Majesty it is a pleasure for me to present you this 'Nepal Panorama' by the author filmmaker and artist, Serbjeet Singh.

This panoramic view of the Kingdom of Nepal is based on topographical maps of the country and Serbjeet Singh is perhaps the only exponent of this art in the world."

Indeed, Serbjeet Singh has been widely hailed as perhaps the world's only expert in rendering topographical maps and mountain features into anoramic views with 3-D effect. The artist shot to fame way back in 1962 when then Prime Minister Jawahar lal Nehru asked Singh to paint a panorama of the Himalayas for the Army Headquarters during the Chinese invasion.

In fact, one of Singh's paintings depicting the Himalayan ranges along the Pakistan border used to widely draw the attention of visitors to the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson's office during the Kargil conflict where the painting dominated one of the walls.

The painting presented to King Gyanendra is the fruit of a year-long labour by the noted artist of the Himalayas, sourced from over a hundred maps of the Himalayan kingdom. The panorama shows the entire depth of Nepal going right across to the plateau of western Tibet with the Brahmaputra source and the Mansarovar Lake. The panorama depicts all of Nepal as viewed from a hypothetical altitude of 100 km above Varanasi, looking north. On the right is the Kanchenjunga massif, Manasalu and Dhaulagiri up to Api, the frontier with India. In the foreground is visible the Gangetic plains of India -- the cities of Lucknow, Faizabad and Gorakhpur. The Kathmandu Valley with the capital city is seen nestled in the Mahabharat Range dividing India and Nepal. Beyond that lies Tibet.

Serbjeet Singh explains his work on the Himalayas as a combination of his talent as a painter and his love for mountaineering, topped with the fish-eye lens effect of the camera which he uses when experimenting with his other love -- filmmaking.

Singh has several national award-winning films to his credit -- India's first war film shot on location, "Operation Zozi La", the 1965 feature film "The Avalanche" and television serials like "Himalaya Darshan" and "Himalaya Watch". Viewers will soon get to watch Singh's 15-part magnum opus on Kashmir which promises to assist the viewer from 1947 to the Kargil and beyond to arrive at an understanding of the so-called "Kashmir problem".