Haman-hai-ishq — love is all there is — words evocative of India’s rich pluralistic tradition represented the quintessence of what Haku Shah, a celebrated Gandhian artist and social anthropologist of exceptional vision, stood for. His death at the age of 84, after a long illness on March 21, didn’t go unnoticed. The National Gallery of Modern Art celebrated his extraordinary life by hosting an evening of music and intimate reminiscences.

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As a teacher, Shah mentored generations of students at the National Institute of Design, taught at the School of Architecture and joined the University of California in the spring of 1991 to teach a studio course in Textiles and Design as a distinguished Regents’ professor. He was a conscientious researcher and authored several books and monographs on folk and tribal art, deconstructing the semiotics of rites and rituals embedded in nature and earth with eminent scholars like Eberhard Fischer, Stella Kramrisch, Joan Erikson and Charles and Ray Eames. His book on Votive Terracottas of Gujarat has acquired a cult status. Jyotindra Jain, who partnered with him to research on Temple Tents for the Mother Goddesses in Gujarat, a 225-page monograph with 460 plates, spoke about their shared passion for research that would often keep them awake till 2 at night as they roamed the streets of the old city of Ahmedabad  to study the nocturnal rituals of Matani Pachedi artisans.

One of Shah’s most seminal contributions was establishing an ethnographic Tribal Museum at the Gujarat Vidyapith and a crafts village in Udaipur. His own body of work resonates at many levels, from the tender, visual rendering of nirguna poetry and imagery derived from folklore to potent expressions of Gandhi’s satyagraha in a 2015  ....