Pune Artist Documents Historic Wadas Through Portraits
A Pune-based painter is creating portraits of traditional wadas to preserve their memory before the historic buildings disappear and are replaced by commercial developments.
The Indian Express has published a feature on an artist who is documenting Pune's historic wadas—traditional mansions—through individual portraits. The piece highlights a grassroots effort to create a visual record of the city's architectural heritage, much of which faces pressure from urban development. By focusing on one painter's long-term project, the report illustrates how individual initiatives are contributing to the preservation of cultural memory in rapidly changing urban landscapes.
The first time Charudutt Pande stepped through the narrow passage of a Pune wada, the contrast stopped him. A shadowed corridor opened onto a courtyard split between darkness and the rising sun, where copper craftsmen worked under yellow bulbs that cast a golden glow on wooden pillars carved with intricate detail. Beyond the thick walls, traffic roared; inside, another era was quietly turning to ruin. "I felt that I was walking backward in time to 50 or 100 years ago," Pande said (Indian Express).
That encounter, years ago, redirected the artist’s practice. Pande, who is based in Pune, promised himself he would paint the city’s wadas—traditional courtyard mansions—before they crumbled and were replaced by what he calls "glass-and-granite commercial eyesores." He does not consider himself an architectural artist. "I paint the wadas like portraits. I remove them from their surroundings and bring them alive as different personalities," he said (Indian Express).
The project grew from a personal history of portraiture. Raised in Nanded, Pande struggled with academics, failing his first year of polytechnic before his family enrolled him in art college. His early work focused on human figures—cobblers, auto-rickshaw drivers, street vendors, chai tapri owners, and craftsmen—capturing the life stories of people who often went unnoticed. During post-graduation in Pune, a brief detour into abstract art gave way to a return to figurative work. It was while hunting for inexpensive art supplies in the wholesale markets around Kasba Peth that he stood mesmerised before a wada. The dying grandeur struck him first; the artist’s eye next picked up the cracks in the edifice, symbolically and literally (Indian Express).
Exploring the historic neighbourhoods, Pande found the structures carried stories much like his human subjects. Each possessed a distinct personality: some bore the confidence of former prosperity, others showed signs of neglect. His eye catches specific architectural signatures—the devali with banana flower motifs by the entrance, a hallmark of Maharashtrian architecture, and the rows of windows offering glimpses into Parsi wadas. But the portraits also record a social shift. "These grand houses were inspirational at one time not so long ago. Now, in some wadas, the small rooms are rented out to workers and migrant labour cheaply as the original elite owners no longer want to live in places where the plumbing, road network and construction details are in a bad state," Pande said (Indian Express).
The paintings function as documents of architectural treasures disappearing under redevelopment pressure. Pande’s canvases isolate the structures from their chaotic urban context, preserving the carved pillars, the play of light in the courtyard, and the quiet dignity of facades that the city’s master plan may not protect. The work continues, one portrait at a time, against a timeline the artist cannot control.
Indian Express