An easel among scented pines, cedars and bird calls

An art gallery in a tiny, nondescript village in the midst of the hills! Situated in Hewn village of Chaily panchayat, the Prantika Art Gallery, which is around 7 km from Shimla, may not be known to many people. But it houses paintings and sculptures by famous West Bengal artist Sanat Kumar Chatterjee, his guru Asit Kumar Haldar and other master painters. It has an enclosure devoted to Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and separate galleries on contemporary, modern and traditional art.

Located in tranquil surroundings with the scent of pines, cedars and rhododendrons permeating the air, the gallery contains among its art treasures the longest painting in the world (watercolour on silk cloth measuring 100x11 sq ft) by Chatterjee. It finds mention in the Guinness and Limca books of world records.

How did Chatterjee choose to open an art gallery in the midst of mountains, hundreds of miles from his home?

“There is a story behind it,” says Pawan Verma, a local from Hewn and the curator-cum-manager of Sanat Art Foundation. Chatterjee’s mentor Haldar had asked him to promote art in the Himalayas as part of guru dakshina (fee), and so he set out for the hills near Shimla. He taught art in some of the colleges in Himachal Pradesh but, as promised to his guru, he never sold any of his artworks, including thousands of painting, until his death last year.

While the art gallery is the major attraction, the tiny village has more to offer too.

A half-hour walk from the gallery is the Chadwick waterfall in the midst of dense forests, which are a haunt for birds and a treat for birdwatchers. Listening to the gurgle of the cascading waters and the chirping of birds, especially after the monsoons, can be a memorable experience.

Thanks to the efforts of Chatterjee’s son Him, and Verma, who happens to be the grandson of a former sarpanch of Chaily panchayat, Hewn was declared a tourist village in 2010.

The State Department of Tourism and Civil Aviation funded the landscaping and a park for visitors. The village has three homestays and a roofless temple of the local deity Gan devta.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi