The Nayika is perhaps the most pedestrian theme since the 18th and 19th century miniatures, to be outdone only by Ganesha, the elephant headed roly-poly god, whose market is second to none in this country. But in the hands of the artists mustered together by the Gallery Ganesha at Sridharani Gallery in New Delhi, the theme is sloughed off, leaving us with the journey of the woman in the history of the visual arts to the present, as Gogi Saroj Pal has done singlehandedly at her exhibition at the Dhoomimal Art Centre. The iconic image of the Nayika as an object for the male eye, with various nuances at the hands of different male artists, ranges from Ramanada Bandhopadhyay?s Manini to Neeraj Goswami?s Sakhi, Jayashree Burman?s Nayika, Suhas Roy?s Radha and Sunil Das? Nayika. All these artists have portrayed the traditional image, but using contemporary stylistic aesthetics.

Again, still within the traditional narrative framework, we have the works of Sakti Burman (in both the iconic and lyrical style), Satish Gujral and in Badri Narayan?s Abhisarika Nayika And The Poet. The element of the woman as an icon to be looked at by men and as a dramatic personality in a privileged sphere still pervades these works.

But the works that tell us that the Nayika theme is played out and has to be stretched beyond its limits to find a place in our modern mind-set include nearly half the artists. They portray women as women from different regions and not as paradigms. They are real people living real lives in different parts of India. This is true for A Ramachandran?s bathing beauty from Kerala, Laxma Goud?s Banjara woman with a goat from Andhra, Lalu Prasad Shaw?s Bhadralok woman fron Bengal, Vaikuntam?s Telegana woman, K S Radhakrishnan?s Santhal woman with a leaf in her hand and C S N Patnaik?s story-teller (a sutradhar and not nayika). These works reflect the break with tradition that no longer puts women on the pedestal or looks at them as what art critics often describe euphemistically as ?heroines?. These women are women who can be placed in a non-repetitive historical framework in keeping with the different concrete conditions of life.

A novel treatment of the Nayika theme, if there is one, can be seen in Paresh Maity?s Nayika, who reminds us of a modern version of Aubrey Beardsley?s self-centred and self-immersed women, confident of themselves and their capacity to attract attention and dominate the scene. They are theatrical, but in the manner of a Virginia Woolf or a Smita Patil. Indeed, Maity has excelled himself in this rendering of a woman treading the borderline between the traditional vamp and the heroine, a treatment that cocks the snook at tradition. As expected, the works are of sound quality, but the outdated theme detracts from the quality of the works rather than enhancing it, as happened earlier with the Navarasa exhibition. Revivals don?t sit well with contemporaneity even if they appear to be bright ideas for a while.