‘Amrita & Victor’ – a book launch

The Hungarian Institute, in collaboration with Fingerprint Publisher, will commemorate the 110th birth anniversary of artist Amrita Shergill by organising a book launch of celebrated author and documentary film maker Ashwini Bhatnagar’s “Amrita & Victor”.

It is a novel about the unconventional love and relationship of the unconventional woman and her cousin, Victor Egan.

The programme will be curated by Mariann Erdo, Director of Hungarian Cultural Centre and will include a dramatised reading by Santanu Bose, dean of NSD, followed an exhibition of Amrita and Victor’s photographs.

Ashwini has so far written 18 books, including fiction and nonfiction. Among the famous ones are a biography of iconic actress Meena Kumari, Operation Khatma, and Agent 304, which producers have purchased for audio visual adaptations. Diary of a Kashmiri Pandit, one of his most famous films, hosted by actress Deepti Naval, documented the anguish of the valley’s pandits.

Ashwini Bhatnagar’s book ‘Amrita and Victor’ explores the passion and intimacy between Amrita and Victor, their conflict with social mores, and the way the unconventional relationship shapes Amrita’s art, indirectly and indirectly. It’s a love story rather than a history of her art. In fact, the book is mainly about Amrita and Victor’s search for identity, and living with personal choices they make along the way.

It reveals how a woman experiments between western and Indian lifestyles to find her own centre as a person, and as a professional artist. The dilemmas and conflicts that Amrita and Victor face to have a life together is central to the narrative. While Amrita struggles to fashion a personal and artistic identity for herself, Victor stands solidly behind her. His unconditional support makes him a prime example of what a modern liberal man ought to be.

The book engages with issues of passion and desire, morality and social ethos, individual choice vs societal practices — and, with dreams lived and dreams shattered.

When: 6:00 pm, June 9

Where: Hungarian Institute Cultural Centre, New Delhi