NIGHT after night over the past months of misery when the world seemed to be hurtling toward total destruction, I would find one man who appeared to be at peace. For many weeks I simply glanced at him as I passed by his shop in Alkhobar on my evening constitutional. He was so out of place, standing in the brightly illuminated storefront. The street might be filled with honking cars, motors revving, and people hurrying by, but the man was oblivious. He would just be there every night calmly, quietly, painting.
It was very strange. The shop on King Khaled Street was called, “Technology of Solar Energy.” This didn’t seem to be related to art in any way. After a few weeks I began stopping to watch the man paint. He was completely caught up in his art. It was amusing to walk by one evening and see him just starting to sketch out a scene on canvas. By the next evening, a partial outline would be visible. Night after night more and more of the picture would be revealed. It became a game to guess what he would paint next.
He would vary his style. He painted quite realistic Saudi village scenes for a while. Then he did a beautiful impressionistic painting of traditional Saudi architecture. One night I found him sketching a man and child. For the next week I watched him create a lovely portrait. Then I came by and he was gone.
I waited a week but he didn’t return, and I got curious. So I went into the shop to ask about the artist.
They advised me that he’d gone to Al-Ahsa and would be back. And one night he was. There he stood again in the window, in front of his easel, using his colors to make a proud hawk appear on the canvas.
The next afternoon I made a point of coming by to ask about his work and that’s when I realized that C.V. Mohan was not a man who limited himself to small oil paintings on canvas. He moved a display of wooden shutters and revealed a beautiful tropical scene painted directly on the wall. Mohan eagerly showed me two other wall murals and then we hit an impasse. We couldn’t communicate. He managed to tell me to come the next day at 5. So I had to wait a little while longer to hear his tale.
“I have a dream and C.V. Mohan is here in Saudi Arabia to help me make it come true,” Dr. Ahmed Al-Rowaished, the shop owner told me the next afternoon.
Al-Rowaished has traveled the world collecting posters, postcards and photographs of destinations far and near. Leafing through his collection one day he came up with a plan to share it with others.
“Here in Saudi Arabia, when you open the window there isn’t much of a view,” said Al-Rowaished. “Everybody lives behind privacy walls and even once you’re outdoors it’s mostly desert. I enjoy looking at all the pictures of distant lands so much and I thought it would be wonderful if I could find someone who could reproduce those views on the walls of my home and my friends‚ homes and so that’s how I met Mohan.”
Al-Rowaished had made a trip to India. He’d been advised that in Bombay, center of India’s film and fantasy world, he’d find the talent he needed. Mohan was working at the Suhana Art Studio when he met Al-Rowaished and learned of his plan. Mohan realized that there were no guarantees in the arrangement but he wanted a chance for a better life. So he agreed to come to the Kingdom and work hard to build up the business.
At first there was no business. So Mohan helped out as a clerk in Al-Rowaished’s shop, which specialized in solar coatings and systems, window blinds and aluminum panels. He was desperate to let people see his work so first he painted murals in enamel on the shop walls using as guides pictures from Al-Rowaished’s collection. But people couldn’t see inside the shop very well and all the models of window blinds and solar materials blocked the walls. That’s how he hit upon the idea to set up his easel and paint in the brightly-lit shop window at night.
The idea has paid off. Now Mohan has completed two murals inside homes — one is 20-square meters in size and the other one is 50-square meters. More are to come. The owner of a local furniture store has already commissioned a 250-square meter mural to cover an entire wall in his showroom.
“It’s really the most wonderful idea,” said Al-Rowaished. “Just think of the best vacation you ever went on and imagine what it would be like to wake up to that scene every morning. Having Mohan here has made that possible for my family and now he’s recreating special views for others.”