kolkata her vivacious spirit will remain unvanquished forever rituparnoghosh tweeted on friday when he heard shanulahiri had passed away thats perhaps the best way to encapsulate the personality of the artist who believed life itself is a challenge and lived it in its myriad hues shes survived by daughter damayanti and son arnab born january 23 1928 the govt college of art alumni whose achievements had fetched her the presidents gold medal in 1950s perhaps a first for any woman artist had done paintings sculpture tapestry glass painting but art really was one of the things to remember her by many would remember her for her durga at bakulbagan or her scenography for manjushri chaki sarkar many others would remember her for smritir collage her memoirs that sketched for us the story of her patriotic parents her writer brother kamal kumar majumdar artist brother nirode majumdar singer sister geeta for rabindra chetana an insight into the skilled art of tagore for edo gali theke beni madhab stories showing her immense love for the animals shes lived with lived for or simply passed by for the book of recipes thatll keep alive the taste of her masterly cooking and kolkata can it forget her love calcutta project which showed the city how to transform peeling walls into space for public art justice chandra madhab lane came alive with a colourful mural that offered relief to eyes sore with political graffiti la martinere students were initiated into the principles of lines and tones slum kids had a gala time too as the fish market in lake town too got a multihued coat of paints why the same 1980s had seen shanudi inspire the inmates of murshidabad jail put paint to paper initiating cultural intervention in correctional homes social activism was merely being a good citizen in the family shanudi grew up watching her mother practice calligraphy listening to lectures and recitation hosting musicians like amir khan ali akbar khan bahadur khan in fact one such visit saw her accompanying bahadur khan to the radio station as she listened to the players sarangi interpret ahir bhairav she could see darkness being wiped out by the growing light of dawn thats ahir bhairav the overwhelmed musician was ecstatic thus was born the raagmala series shanudi exhibited in 1978 it was early 1950s when shanudi held her first solo exhibition and by 1960s shed won a scholarship to paris following which she held a string of exhibitions home and overseas one of them based on the myth of sita and ravan gave a new reading of ramayan another series was based on the folk tales of thakurmar jhuli and when she was with the rabindra bharati university she inspired her students to do largesized copies of tagores paintings shanudi wasnt daunted by criticism of this effort while in france we did copies of western masters as part of our curriculum why not study our own masters shed asked tagore wasnt a favourite of