HYDERABAD: At the Rajniketan lawns, paintings and sketches stood at different angles as it caught the glow of the overhead lights here on Sunday.And in between those spaces, conversations flowed and broke only for a sip of chai or the instrumental music in the background. More than 200 paintings and sketches on exhibit at the open-air terraces.The venue stretched across three levels and led up to a hillock. Water colours, ink drawings, and digital compositions filled the space and every piece carried the traces of a man who had moved through medicine, animation, heritage and technology, carrying all three together.The eve of his 60th birthday, Dr Neeraj Raj stood among his works, laughter breaking through his words as old classmates pointed at a portrait.“We used to only see him drawing all around the place. He sat in the second last bench, always sketching,” Devendra Surana said.The Hyderabad Public School batch of 1982 had gathered in front of a wall of sketches and faces, all belonging to the batch of ‘82.“Right out of college, he got into IT-enabled creativity, especially animation,” another batch-mate said, adding, “Despite being a doctor, we saw his creativity throughout.”R. Subhash Babu, his school’s art teacher, stood nearby. “Every time I bunked my classes, I went to my art class with him, and later he would settle troubles in the staff room,” Dr. Raj recalled.P. Anuradha Reddy, heritage activist and INTACH Hyderabad convenor, carried a heritage map of the city, created by Dr Neeraj in 1996.“He was a revolutionary,” she said. “We didn’t always understand what he proposed, but we supported him because he had the brightest ideas. He even made this map for Intach,” she said.She then went on to point at a painting of Purdah Gate from 2003.“It is in bad shape now. A bus ran into it some time back,” she said. “Look at it here. It is different from what it is now.”On a similar note, another visitor who stood before a painting of public gardens with a water body in front said, “Water from Hussainsagar used to flow here, then into Musi. Now it’s all dried up.”The Urban Sketchers of Hyderabad placed themselves in different spots across the venue. One perched on the roof, another worked between easels, while a few climbed higher up the hillock.Srihari Akkiraju, the senior most member of the sketchers club, had spent two months sketching New York and sketched over a hundred paintings with its buildings and streets. His focus remained on the exhibition.“We mostly do live painting whenever we meet and try to capture the complete mood of the place,” he said.A small crowd gathered around a VR headset placed next to a 3D Charminar painting. The headset transported viewers inside the artwork itself.The first thing they saw was the Charminar. Turning left, Mecca Masjid appeared, followed by the surrounding heritage structures. A painting had become something that could be entered, explored, and experienced.
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