Mohinder Verma
An officer par excellence, the quintessence of great poetess and artist… These words are sufficient to briefly describe Sangeeta Gupta, an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, who never allowed her professional duties and passion to clash at any stage of her life. While scaling up the ladder of success in the Income Tax Department, she simultaneously earned name and fame as a painter, a poetess and a staunch supporter of emancipation of women.
Be it studies during college days, expectations of parents from a duty-bound daughter, continuing passion for writing and painting and cracking the Civil Services Exams after completion of Master’s Degree in Political Science to become an Indian Revenue Service officer, Sangeeta Gupta maintained exceptional equilibrium in every sphere and in every task.
She has not had any formal training in the field of fine arts but can still boast of more artistic achievements than most of her generation of professional painters. With every passing year, she is not only excelling in the Income Tax Department, where she is considered as an expert on widening of tax base, but also making additions to the long list of honors in the field of writing and painting.
For Sangeeta Gupta abstract art is a means to reach the non-objective experiences that help shape the inner life. It is a witness to the fact that man’s spiritual needs do not disappear even in times engulfed by gross materialism. She strives to express the poetic vision in her works. Keeping in view her strong passion for painting and writing, one can only make guess about her performance on professional duties front. But the fact is that she has earned distinctions and achieved the targets assigned to her wherever she was posted till date. Presently, she is Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, J&K and during her short stint in the State the department has produced remarkable results.
Her journey for excellence in painting and writing started in the year 1995 when she held her first solo show at Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata, which was inaugurated by none other than Mother Teresa. The entire sale proceeds of this show were donated to CRY. She has held 28 solo shows all over India including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Chandigarh and overseas in London, Berlin, Munich, Lahore Belfast (Northern Ireland) and Thessaloniki (Greece).
In August, 2013, her 26th solo exhibition dedicated to Uttarakhand, was inaugurated by the former President of India Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. The fund of Rs 20 lakh raised through the sale proceeds of her paintings has been used for creating a Fine Art Education Grant for the students of Uttarakhand. She has participated in more than 200 group shows in India and abroad, in national exhibitions of Lalit Kala Akademi, AIFACS and Sahitya Kala Parishad and in several art camps.
Her paintings are in the permanent collection of the Bharat Bhavan Museum, Bhopal, Museum of Sacred Art (MOSA) Belgium and Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki (Greece). Her works have been represented at the India Art Fair, New Delhi in 2011, 2013, 2014 & 2015. As part of Indian Delegation she had a solo exhibition of paintings at Shenzhen, China 11th International Cultural and Industrial Fair 2015.
Apart from winning all India awards for drawing, her works occupy space on the walls of the country’s most prestigious residences and offices including those of the President and Prime Minister as well as Governors of Karnataka and Jammu and Kashmir. This multifaceted lady also dabbles in several other fields like photography and she has taken part in national exhibitions of photography in 1999 and 2001, New Delhi. She has also published six volumes of poems and one collection of short stories.
Awards bagged by Sangeeta Gupta:
Delhi Gaurav Award 2015 in Professional Category for Art & Culture by Indian Brave Hearts supported by Union Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment; 6th Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award (2015); India Excellence Award for Poetry 2015; Priyadarshini Award 2015 as an International Cultural Entrepreneur by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Entrepreneur (MSME) India. 35th Women Entrepreneurship Award 2015 by “Bharat Nirman”; Global Women Achievers Award 2015 by IGBC; Poet of the Year Award (2014) by 3rd Delhi International Film Festival 2014; Awarded and honored as an Artist by 3rd Delhi International Film Festival 2014.
She is also the recipient of 6th National Women Excellence Award (2013); Rashtrakavi Maithilisharan Gupt Samman (2013) for contribution to Hindi poetry; Women Achievers Award (2013) by Indian Council for UN relations on the eve of International Women’s Day; Vishwa Hindi Pracheta Alankaran (2013); Udbhav Shikhar Samman (2012) for achievements in the field of art and literature; Hindprabha Award (1999) for Indian Women Achievers by Uttar Pradesh Mahila Manch; 77th Annual Award for Painting (2005) by All India Fine Arts & Craft Society, New Delhi and 69th Annual Award for Drawing (1998).
There is a collection of short stories and five anthologies of poems in Hindi to her credit. Sangeeta Gupta’s collection of poems ‘Iss Par Uss Par’ has been translated in Bangla and ‘Pratinaad’ has also been translated in Bangla, English and German. ‘Weaves of Time’, a collection of English poems was published in 2013 by Partridge, a Penguin company. “Sparsh Ke Gulmohar” (collection of Hindi poems published by Rajkamal Prakashan 2015). Ladakh : Knowing the unknown” (a book of rare photographs published by Full Circle 2015) launched at Jaipur Literature Festival 2015.
She has also directed, scripted and shot seven documentary films including one on “Kung Fu Nuns in Mystic Ladakh”. Her films have been screened at various prestigious venues in Delhi and telecasted on DD Bharati and Lok Sabha channels several times in the recent past. “Kung Fu Nuns in Mystic Ladakh” was screened at 3rd Delhi International Film Festival 2014.
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