Artist follows in father’s footsteps, adds new colours to Harivallabh Sammelan

While Indian classical music maestros brought the 150th Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan to life through their performances, artists working behind the scenes played an equally important role by creating the ambience with mural paintings, floral decorations and themed stage backdrops.

It was a 28-year-old artist Manzil Zurff who got all the decorations done with the choicest of colours that built up attraction around the venue at the Devi Talab Mandir. Manzil, her assistant Muditta Pandey and a team of 15 other artists worked for days together to create the perfect set up.

“For years, we had been doing the decorations in orange, yellows and browns which are basically the colours that are often seen in places of worship. Since it was 150th celebration this time and the budgets were higher, we had much more scope to experiment. We did not get any marigolds. Instead, we used carnations and other flowers making a sync of whites, pinks and purples and it worked really well. Our murals were also confined to these limited colours only”, explained the young artist, who has inherited it all through her father and noted painter Amit Zurff, who passed away in 2021 due to Covid.

Amit Zurff was known to make live portraits of the artists at the Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan. By the time the artist would end his hour or two hour performance, Amit’s portrait would be ready. He would then get it signed from the artist and present it back to him. Manzil discussed how themes are planned for Harivallabh, “My first project for them had a touch of Jaipur art. In subsequent years, I have reused the sculptures created by my dad in 2013 which were based on concepts from Ajanta Ellora caves. This time we had full freedom to explore and we centred the theme around the kinds of art work see often in gurdwaras or in Rajasthan folk. In fact, my work was a blend of both. For the background on stage, we used alphabets cut out from thermacol. We worked in coordination with committee member Kaveri Kalsi”.

Having passed out from Police DAV Public School and Mehr Chand Polytechnic, Manzil says she had learnt it all from my father. “Art was introduced to me in my childhood. No one knows what age. I have grown up seeing my father paint all the time. My father trained me in pencil shading and it was in Class VIII that I remember having surprised my best friend with her portrait. Now I am more into water colours and I do all my portraits, which is my speciality in water medium. I take classes of children and women in water painting at my studio in Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar”.

Manzil’s elder sister is a historian in art and teaches in Chandigarh. Currently, Manzil is working on a series that relates to the history of Jalandhar, “I am making water colour paintings on old buildings, some of which have got partly demolished too and could even get lost with passage of time. These include the Car Wali Kothi, TV Tower, Imaam Nasir and so on. Since I am also associated with Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall, I shall also make a painting on it. This series will remain ongoing. The inspiration for this also comes from my dad, who was a photographer too. He had taken clicks of all these landmark sites in Jalandhar. I want to juxtapose his pictures with my paintings in an exhibition sometime in future.”