David Paynter’s Indian connection
My father Atma Jayaram, who knew David as a teacher at Trinity College, Kandy took me with him to this farm in 1968. Finding it in a state of disrepair, he reported this to David Paynter to suggest they send funds to revitalise the farm.
Paynter's gift: The Pumpkin boy
The story of my father’s connection with Sri Lanka began when my grandfather Dr.T.K. Jayaram was posted as a medical officer in the Mandapam camp on the shores of Tamil Nadu (then the Madras Presidency) in 1910. His job was to certify the labour leaving for Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). After a few years of service, the Sri Lanka government offered him a job in Colombo to work as a doctor. He left Rameswaram for Jaffna by boat and found his way to the capital.
Atma Jayaram
Jayaram’s elder son J. Dayaram was born in Chennai (then Madras) in 1914 and his younger son Atmaram (later changed to Atma Jayaram) was born in Colombo in 1915. Dr. Jayaram became a successful doctor with the privileges of a government officer living in an independent bungalow and being part of the Colombo society. His wife died soon after his second son was born and his sons were brought up by their maternal grandmother. As soon as they were old enough, he sent them to boarding school at Trinity College, Kandy.
Dayaram excelled at sport reaching the All-Ceylon level in Athletics and Rugby. Atma also played Rugby but was more inclined to the sciences winning the Physics prize in school. He went on to do his science degree in Colombo University and was admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge to do the Physics Tripos. He worked in the Cavendish laboratory under Lord Rutherford who had split the atom earlier in the 20th century.
David Paynter had earlier worked in the forest of the Terai in North India but soon returned to learn to paint in Colombo. Such was his skill, he was chosen by the Royal Academy in London to exhibit at their annual summer show in 1923. He was recognised in Australia too. Having been chosen by the Royal Academy, he was considered by art critics as one of the most promising painters of the 30s in London but he chose to return to Sri Lanka and work as both a missionary and teacher for the rest of his life.
The portrait that Nehru wasn't happy about
Atma Jayaram went back to India as he did not get Sri Lankan citizenship and joined the Indian Police. He was unable to pursue science but had a very successful career in the foreign service and intelligence service going on to become the head under PM Indira Gandhi.
To quote an article from the Indian Defence Review ‘Jayaram was one of the legendary Trinitians from India that was a contemporary of the famous spymaster R.N. Kao who founded the foreign wing of Indian intelligence’. Atma served as the head of Indian intelligence during the chaotic period of the 70s and was very much one of the leading figures among the men who shaped the Bangladesh war of 1971.
After Indian independence, Atma was posted in New Delhi and when after a few years there, his wife Sushila wanted to study painting, he asked David Paynter who at the time was the Principal of the Government College of Fine Art to teach her. She spent a year learning from him. Paynter found Sushila a talented painter and helped her achieve a high level of proficiency.
During this period, he painted her portrait and gifted the work to her along with his painting of ‘the Pumpkin boy’. Both paintings remain in the family collection.
At the time she introduced Paynter to Indira Gandhi who convinced her father, India’s then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to have his portrait painted. While working on the protrait, Paynter stayed with Atma and Sushila and they became lifelong friends. However, Nehru did not appreciate the portrait as Paynter showed him as a compassionate person at a time when Nehru was at the peak of his power and wanted to be seen as such.
The painting was sent off to the Vice-Regal lodge in Shimla and has since disappeared. Incidentally, Winston Churchill too was as unhappy with his portrait done in 1954 by Graham Sutherland who was chosen to portray the PM for the UK Parliament and painted him as an ageing politician. Lady Churchill had the painting burnt. Luckily a sketch of the work survives in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Dr. T.K. Jayaram 1933
David Paynter kept in touch with our family till his death in 1975 and even visited Delhi in 1973. In 1970, a couple of architect friends of mine from Cambridge were visiting Sri Lanka and we were taken by Mano Ponniah, himself an architect from Cambridge and a cricket Blue who had played for Sri Lanka against India in an unofficial Test series in 1964, to Trincomalee to visit Paynter who was running a school for orphans there.
We met him and had tea but found he was not painting any more. On the way out, Mano ran over a duck and we had to tell David about it. He told us not to worry - the children would have duck curry that night.
Mano Ponniah later married my cousin Radhika who was Dayaram’s younger daughter and as a result our family relinked with the Emerald Isle. On a recent visit, I discovered Paynter’s magnum opus ‘The Transfiguration’ the large mural at the chapel of S. Thomas College, Mount Lavinia. It is clearly a life changing masterpiece.
Paynter is now recognised as a major force of the 20th century and a new gallery for his works has been created in the Faculty of Visual Arts in Colombo. His early murals in the beautiful chapel of Trinity College, Kandy are also much admired.
My mother who was very influenced by his work, went to become a well-known painter. Her maiden exhibition in Cairo, Egypt in the late 50s led to her work being bought by buyers from all parts of the world. She later had exhibitions in Delhi and Mumbai and her new work on mystical painting was much appreciated.
(The writer is an architect in Goa. He has been working with architect and artist Ismeth Raheem, to publish a wide ranging book on David Paynter to give him the recognition he richly deserves in his homeland)
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