Gulammohammed Sheikh turns 85 this month. He was born on February 16, 1937, into a middle-class Sunni Muslim family in Surendranagar, a small, laidback Saurashtra town in Gujarat.
When he was 15, he started a handwritten magazine titled Pragati with friend and mentor Labhshankar Rawal. Another friend, Shantilal Shah, introduced him to the art wealth of Jain temples. Sheikh, thus, grew up amidst a syncretic camaraderie. He once recalled in an interview that in the mornings he would recite from the Quran at the madrasa and in the afternoon he read Sanskrit scriptures from the Upanishads and Kalidas. The Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, which later coloured most of his works, emanated from Surendranagar.
6 February 2022
