Deepak Ghare's print tribute launched at MMS function

As Mehul Shah, the master of the ceremony said, “The book, which has 36 essays in the 236 pages has been published by Param Mitra Publication. It is a series of sketches which Ghare has penned about Gutenberg plus the writing systems of Indian languages. Some of the stalwarts of Indian print ranging from Jawaji Dadaji of Nirnaysagar Press in 1868 to the contributions of Anand Coomaraswamy and later, RK Joshi."

Deepak Ghare, born in 1951, has authored 10 books to-date. This includes a book about the travails of Theatre Academy's internationally acclaimed play production of Ghashiram Kotwal as well as an autobiography of renowned Marathi author, CT Khanolkar aka Aarti Prabhu. The unassuming but erudite JJ School of Arts printmaker has also penned a print making book which he says is about "visual art and technique of print and history of print making". Ghare's focus is the history of print. He says, "The art of print-making started right from the Renaissance period. Screen print started from the 20th century. Especially with the arrival of pop art."

Ramu Ramanathan introduced the book to the audience. In his brief talk he said, “The first part of the book focuses on language, typography and semiotics. It describes the role of languages and how it has evolved from 6th century AD to 15th century. Ghare looks at the myths and legends so as to grasp the concepts behind this process. Bapurao Naik of Akshar Pratiroop in his book Typography of Devanagari has provided guidelines about this. Plus Ghare doffs his hat to L S Wakankar's The Traditional Approach to Phonetic Writing.”

Ramanathan added, “The second part of the book Mudranparva is about visual science. Ghare says, "It deals with the creation of science from a script and a combination of pictures and text akin to miniature print as well as the illustrated manuscripts. When printing came into being then picture arts, illustration and graphic arts became a part of communication. Ghare studies psychologists like Carl Jung and the minimalism of Paul Klee.”

Later the chief guest of MMS Lifetime Achievement Award, the veteran journalist, Kumar Ketkar referred to MudranParva in his address when he said, the book provides an insider's view into how letterpress  was introduced in India by missionaries and the history of print in Mumbai. He dedicates a chapter to Jawaji Dadaji's Nirnaysagar printing press.

In the 20th century, L S Wakankar, Bapurao Naik and RK Joshi played a crucial role. Ghare says in the book, "There are two ways of seeing the development of mechanical and digital typesetting process. One was the academic and scholarly approach of people like RK Joshi and ITR (Indian Typographical Institute) and other government bodies, but they had no plans for implementing their ideas, commercially."