Bhai Ram Singh working in the Durbar Hall, Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, England

To recall, mostly with the help of the splendidly researched book on Bhai Ram Singh by Pervaiz and Sajida Vandal of the National College of Art, Lahore: Ram Singh was born in a simple Sikh family in Rasulpur village, near Batala, in the present district of Gurdaspur in Punjab. The year was 1858, just after India had been proclaimed as a part of the British Empire.

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But Lockwood Kipling held, like a few others, different views. It is in “the highest degree desirable”, he felt that attention should be paid “to the systematic study of Oriental Architecture, the source and fountainhead" of all of the subcontinent's Arts.

The Mayo School was certainly conceived as a School of Industrial Art, with an emphasis on design, but, as its principal, Kipling, believed that “it is to the domestic architecture of the country that we must refer if we wish to make a just idea of the present state and future prospects of Indian design as a living force.”

The story is long and involved, but one needs to return to Bhai Ram Singh. He had enrolled in the school of carpentry but with the founding of the Mayo School, he immersed himself in the courses that were gradually being introduced in its curriculum.

Very early on, he caught the eye of Kipling, who recognised his exceptional talent and was to become his mentor and patron in the years that were to follow. From making pieces of elegant furniture and turning out remarkably fine and detailed drawings of designs, Ram Singh was to graduate on to much larger projects as time wore on.

Along with some other students, Kipling took him to Calcutta where a major exhibition was to be held with their work featuring in it. Different architectural projects followed with Ram Singh taking on the role not only of architect but also that of structural engineer, a combination that British architects were more or less unfamiliar with.

In the process, he “never sought to abandon his traditions nor did he turn away from contemporary thoughts on architectural practice”.

The decade between 1883 and 1894 saw a great flowering of the talents of Kipling’s diligent and imaginative protégé. In 1883, Ram Singh joined the services of the Mayo School as Assistant Drawing and Carpentry Master.

He was 25 years old then.

sikhchic.com

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