born in lothal in 1933 sculptor himmat shah grew up in the surroundings by the remnants of the ancient port city of indus valley civilisation shah 85 who has lived in bhavnagar ahmedabad vadodara delhi before shifting to jaipur since 2000 spoke to prashant rupera while he was in the city to visit his friends after 15 years you were part of the early batches of m s universitys faculty of fine arts tell us about the days you spent in vadodara i learnt the intricacies of art under teachers like n s bendre mani sir k g subramanian and sankho chaudhuri but i used to attend college whenever i wanted to instead i used to spend time working outside the classrooms i would show my works to bendre he would give some inputs i would show my works to mani sir and make changes based on their suggestions since i did not attend classes bendre asked me to become noncollegian student but i used to learn from both of themhow did the garba culture spread in vadodara in the 50s as students we used to play garbas with instruments like dholaks at the fine arts faculty premises almost every day as friends we did it just for entertainment but later navratri came and slowly it became a trend gradually this trend started spreading in surrounding mohallas and the garba culture picked up the fine arts faculty was just started and we even used to play holi at vicechancellors residenceso how did you pursue your formal studies in fine artsi never appeared for any exams i never took any degree from the university who are you to give me degrees i have never believed that degrees can help you learn or acquire knowledgewhere there hostels at the campus hostels were there but who had the money to stay in the hostels jyotibhai referring to veteran artist jyoti bhatt had offered me a place teachers like bendre and mani sir would allow me to stay in their home and i also used to handle their kitchens and maintain their homes when they were not in the citywithout a degree how did get french scholarship poet diplomat octavio paz who was himself an art critic was appointed as ambassador to india i was in delhi in those days one day he suddenly visited the place where i used to stay i did not have a chair at this place and there was just a kerosene stove but such a big poet and nobel prize winner was in front of me but he kept smoking biddi and looking at my work for three hours at last he remarked great work later he invited me to almost all functions at his residence where i met big poets authors and artists it was by listening to them that i gained knowledge before that i never knew that russia has rich literature but they used to discuss a variety of subjects it was because of octavio