Page 30 - Seniors Today Febuary 2020

Personality

My Daughter

Kalpana

Lalitha Lajmi talks to Sushmita Bhattrai about Kalpana Lajmi, the brilliant filmmaker
and maverick personality

“Art is like breathing; I can’t live without it.” Born a classical singer and insisted that she learn
into a Saraswat Brahmin family and brought up classical music. Lalitha did learn and after a lot
in Calcutta, sister to four brothers and the niece of insistence she performed some ragas at their
of the commercial artist BB Benegal, Lalitha community gathering in Calcutta. However, she
Lajmi’s early inspiration in art comes from her
grandmother’s room where she found oleographs
of Raja Ravi Verma. Since then Lalitha always
had the desire to be an artist. As children, every
weekend their grandmother would take them to
their uncle’s home on a tram and all the siblings
(the Padukones and the Benegals) would spend
the entire weekend watching films.
Visit to uncle Benegal’s was another place of
inspiration. The wall painted by him struck
Gurudutt and Lalitha Padukone with awe,
influencing their young creative minds. When
Lalitha was five, uncle Benegal gave her a box
of paints and made her participate in a painting
contest where she won the first prize. For the
first time her name appeared in the newspaper,
but before she could collect the prize, she was
asked to come to the office and replicate her art
as it looked too good to be true for a five-year-old.
This angered uncle Benegal and he refused to put
young Lalitha’s talent through a test. That was the
beginning of her life as a painter.
However, Lalitha’s mother wanted her to become The young Lalitha at a classical music performance
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