“I don’t want to make paintings based on usual themes of Warli rituals and customs. In my paintings, I want to record memories of my elders that will soon be lost,” emphasised the adivasi artist. One canvas draws upon his Mothi Aai’s, grandmother’s, memories of Tulsi reservoir (1879-97) construction in the then named Krishnagiri National Park. “Mothi Aai told me,” he recounted leaning over a canvas, “A pada had to be displaced to build a water supply reservoir. A woman chieftain and her clan refused to relocate unless the reservoir was named after their pada, Tulsi. On agreeing, the displaced pada was resettled close by. Ingraj sahebs,” British officers, “came to supervise our people who built the reservoir on tangas,” horse carriages, “and rested in a bungalow,” the Forest Rest House. The artist’s painting unravels adivasi dispossession and alienation through a reservoir that displaces their habitation to the canvas’ top and bottom. Colonial military, bureaucracy, science and technology, depicted through a forest officer, bungalow, tanga, retaining wall, large reservoir and binoculars, produced an infrastructure to accumulate monsoonal waters. Its flows, directed to support life in Urbs Prima in Indis, made possible the accumulation of colonial capital flows. Sanctioned by the Mumbai Metropolitan Heritage Conservation Society, a 2007 study report lists the lake, dam, outlet tower, filtration plant and bungalow as heritage assets.
