Important Notice

Krishen Khanna draws his protagonists from those who often recede to the periphery of our vision. Truck drivers, pavement dwellers, fruit sellers, migrants and Bandwallas take centre stage in his paintings, reflecting the humanism that defines his practice. As he writes, “I believe that since I live in an environment which takes account of me, I cannot very well ignore it. Environment is one of those words which covers just about everything…from... Krishen Khanna draws his protagonists from those who often recede to the periphery of our vision. Truck drivers, pavement dwellers, fruit sellers, migrants and Bandwallas take centre stage in his paintings, reflecting the humanism that defines his practice. As he writes, “I believe that since I live in an environment which takes account of me, I cannot very well ignore it. Environment is one of those words which covers just about everything…from the loud mouthed neighbors, the amplified hymns and chants… to the ‘Tea’ bands playing ‘Colonel Bogey’ during the marriage season..” (Krishen Khanna, Artist Statement, Critical Collective, online)
“The Bandwallas then become happy, gay kind of paintings, which actually... there’s a lot of sadness in it which people don’t see.” - KRISHEN KHANNA
This outlook was shaped by Khanna’s childhood in pre‒Partition Lahore. Recalling those formative years, he remembers a neighbourhood where friendships ran right across doors and economic boundaries. Looking back, Khanna writes that he felt as much at ease in the company of dhabawallas, bandwallas and wayside cobblers as he did among intellectuals. (Krishen Khanna, “I Went Back,” Bapsi Sidhwa, City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2005, p. 107) The upheaval of Partition irrevocably altered the world Khanna had known in Lahore. Forced to leave Lahore in 1947, he eventually settled in Bombay after joining Grindlays Bank.
After moving to New Delhi, Khanna drew inspiration from a city reshaped by migration, reconstruction and urban expansion. Refugees, truck drivers, labourers, pavement dwellers and itinerant performers became enduring subjects. “I internalize what other people are going through... I am not illustrating their lives,” he remarked. “I used to see these fellows every day.” (Artist quoted in Krishen Khanna at 100: Legacy of a Modern Master, New Delhi: Saffronart, 2025, pp. 62–63) Among these were Delhi’s bandwallas. The series originated in the early 1970s, when a wedding procession briefly halted Khanna’s car outside Garhi Studios. With their hired uniforms and ceaseless movement, they became one of the defining motifs of Khanna’s oeuvre, mirroring the rhythms of a city in flux. “People ask where the Bandwallas came from. Partition had a great deal to do with it.” As Khanna later recalled, “Those were the people around me. Those were the lives I wanted to paint.” (Krishen Khanna, “Painter Krishen Khanna Talks About His Art and Anecdotes from His Life,” The Wire, 2017, online)
The present lot, a monumental triptych, depicts a group of Khanna’s celebrated Bandwallas, the brass‒band wedding musicians. Arrayed across the three panels in vivid scarlet military‒style uniforms, the musicians dominate the pictorial field. Their simplified features and largely averted profiles resist individual portraiture. As Khanna himself reflected on the series, he sought to create paintings in which “figures are not in space but are space themselves,” while colours rang “loud and clear in merry juxtaposition.” (Krishen Khanna, “Beyond the Bandwalla’s Cacophony: A Non‒Committal Statement by the Artist,” Art Heritage, vol. 10, 1990–91, p. 168) The saturated reds of the musicians’ uniforms—one of the artist’s most assured chromatic registers—reinforce their commanding presence. Khanna described them as “...sort of leftovers from the Raj... the bandstands have all gone, but these guys are now floating around waiting for weddings to happen.” (Krishen Khanna, “Art Talk – Krishen Khanna (Artist),” NewsX Live, 2011, online)
It was this paradox that fascinated the artist. Their elaborate uniforms masked an uncertain livelihood. Khanna called it “a Chaplinesque situation.” (Khanna, 2011, online) Gayatri Sinha similarly observed that the musicians are “only the witnesses... never the participants.” (Gayatri Sinha, “Krishen Khanna in Conversation with Gayatri Sinha and Roobina Karode on His 96th Birthday,” Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, 2021, online) Their conspicuous presence within the procession belies their position at its margins, revealing the underlying tensions beneath Khanna’s seemingly exuberant compositions.
Khanna’s affinity with the Bandwallas was also deeply personal. “There is something sad and musical about them,” he reflected. “Like refugees, they too came to this side of the border and like me, they too didn’t know what to do in life. They had the skill, got together and waited for the first wedding season. The irony is that nobody wants them otherwise. So, I have some affinity for them.”(Artist quoted in Shilpa Sebastian, “The Inclusive Canvas of Krishen Khanna,” The Hindu, 2018, online)

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