Charudatt Pande on Pune's Forsaken Wadas and Painting the People and Places That Cities Forget

Artist Charudatt Pande grew up in Nanded, Maharashtra, moved to Pune for his MFA, and started walking through lanes and past faces, into an urban observation that doesn’t really have a fixed destination. What he found, first, were the people who make cities run without ever appearing in any account of them. These included the construction worker, the daily labourer, the man who stands in the back of a truck at seven in the morning. Then, in around 2022, something shifted. Pande turned his gaze from people to the 150 to 200-year-old wadas of central Pune — grand residences now crumbling in congested lanes, treated in his paintings not as architecture but as portraits.

His current architectural series treats each of these structures not as a subject but as a portrait, in precisely the way he once painted people. The work is being shown alongside 22 other artists at The Contemporary Lore: Sojourn of Styles and Generations Unfurled, an exhibition presented by Shailja Art Gallery at Bikaner House, New Delhi, running from May 9 to May 14, 2026, before moving to Shailja Art Gallery in Gurugram from May 17 to June 13. Curated by Kiran K Mohan, with a critical essay by art historian Johny ML, the show places established, mid-career, and emerging artists alongside one another without hierarchical separation.

In an exclusive conversation with Robb Report India, Pande speaks about the invisible, the forgotten, and what it means to paint a building the way you would paint a person.

Robb Report India: You grew up in a town in central Maharashtra before moving to Pune. How did that transition shape the kind of artist you became?

Charudatt Pande: In Nanded, I never truly felt the need to experience things independently. Moving to Pune was my first real brush with solitude. I began wandering through the city alone, observing people, buildings, and society with a sense of detached curiosity. That shift from being protected to being an independent observer was crucial. It completely transformed how I look at my canvas.

RR: Your earlier work engaged with the visible markers of India's diversity. At what point did you feel compelled to look at the lives that don't make it into that familiar picture?

CP: After my MFA, I was fascinated by the people who make our lives easier yet remain unseen. From 2015 until around 2022, my practice was dedicated to exploring their resilience. But understanding the social surface was only the first stage. I felt a need to dive beneath it. That led me to the architectural series — the same human stories, but through the lens of the structures they inhabit.

RR: You've described your paintings as telling the stories of those who remain behind the screen. How do you find those stories, and how do you decide when one is ready to be painted?

CP: I compare these wadas to legendary cinema stars of the 60s and 70s. In their prime, celebrated and adored. Over time, they faded into the background. Yet even in their old age, a glimpse of their former grace remains. I treat these buildings not just as structures but as portraits. Each has its own history, its own story, a unique place in the life of the city. It is that lingering existence in the present that keeps drawing me back.

RR: The Contemporary Lore places artists across career stages without hierarchy. Where does your own practice sit within that?

CP: Most participants are senior artists, with only a few of us from the mid-career stage. Seeing my work alongside such stalwarts brings immense joy but also a great sense of responsibility. It validates the trust the gallery has placed in me. Every artist who aspires to do serious work needs a mentor who can walk alongside them and provide a platform where the work receives its true dignity.

RR: Your titles carry as much intention as the image itself. How do you arrive at a title, and does it come before or after the work?

CP: Almost always after. Near my studio, I would see a truck dropping off construction labourers each morning. I painted them. The title Charles Correa, Laurie Baker, & Etc came later. When we look at a magnificent building, we praise the architect. But the hands that bring that vision to life belong to the labourers. I wanted to elevate them to the status of an architect through the title. It is my way of acknowledging that architecture is built on the silent labour of those who are never named.

RR: For someone building a serious collection today, what makes a work worth living with over many years?

CP: These wadas may only stand for a few more years before they vanish. A serious collector doesn't just buy a painting; they invest in a thought. I am freezing an entire era within my work. In five or ten years, the physical structures might be gone. These paintings will remain as the only tangible form of that history.

RR: In times when AI can generate images in seconds, what can a hand, a gaze, and a lived experience still do that technology cannot?

CP: AI provides perfection, but perfection isn't necessarily attractive. We are drawn to things that are slightly off, things that are missed or left incomplete, because that is where curiosity is born. My paintings are born from physical experience — walking the streets, talking to people. What I translate onto the canvas is extracted from those lived encounters. That emotional connection can only be forged by a human hand.

RR: What comes after this exhibition?

CP: I intend to move beyond traditional canvas and work with CNC-cut MDF and metal cut-outs, playing with space and layers differently. My larger goal is to bring the human element and these ancient structures into a unified narrative — a dialogue between the inhabitants and the spaces they occupy. That fusion is where I am heading.