Maverick sculptor and artist across mediums dies aged 92

As a young boy, Himmat Shah — Himta to his friends — ran away from the confines of his zamindar family home in a village near Bhavnagar to a nearby forest.

- Dhamini Ratnam

MUMBAI: As a young boy, Himmat Shah — Himta to his friends — ran away from the confines of his zamindar family home in a village near Bhavnagar to a nearby forest. Lost, tired and famished by the evening, he entered a cave and saw many naked sadhus meditating. One of them opened his eyes and asked Shah how he had managed to find this place.

"Are you hungry?" he asked the boy, and offered him a sweet. He told him to visit a temple further away and asked the boy to leave immediately. The apocryphal tale retold by Shah's friends, students and acolytes over the years may have lost some of its factualness along the way, but its significance is stronger than ever. It remains to them a sign of Shah's fierce independence and courage, which he displayed not only as a child but for much of his career as India's foremost sculptor.