Signature lower right.

Provenance: Virginia Giacometti Collection, Italy.

Publication: Plamena Dimitrova Racheva, Boris Georgiev of Varna, Ed. Kibea, p. 129.

In his notes from India, Boris Georgiev wrote: "During my frequent visits to Gandhi in his ashram in Wardha, thousands of these martyrs would come there every evening to find a little solace in their miserable life, in the company of the apostle of good who was fighting for their liberation, and was killed for that by the Brahmans. This sketch shows the face of an old pariah. I saw him one evening while I was sitting near Gandhi; I saw his moving expression of kindness, his eyes turned to God, seeking solace from his suffering". The image of this old poverty-strickem man, whose life was supported only by the spirit, became part of the composition of Georgiev's famous painting "Meeting with Pariahs". The tragic face embodies the social inequality and suffering which had been dividing people in Indian society for centuries.
Lytadmil Stoyanov offers this interpretation of the work: " In meeting with Pariahs we can see the tragic image of man in a tipically feudal country such as India, left to a life worse than the cattle's, who by the law of Manu cannot drink water from a well but only from a puddle"- in the artist's eyes, this man is a saint. This is apparent from the affection with which he has depicted the pariah, without the torn clothes of povertym with just the expression on the face, heavily wrinkled and unshaven, and most of all eyes, which reveal a centuries-old sorrow, helplessness and despair".
The light in the eyes of the poor Indian peasant and the serenity of his face bring to mind the icons of the holy martyrs. A portrait made from life reveals the mystery of faith which transcends the temporary hardships and suffering in the material world. Boris Georgiev writes of this portrait: "A sketch I made in Gandhi's ashram of a poor pariah. The eyes of that brother of ours expressed his state of mind with the same expression as the crucified Christ who, dying on the cross, forgave his exectutioners. Gandhi cried when I showed him the drawing, amazed and moved by the fact that I had put the immense sorrow of the Indian people into a small sketch. I used this sketch later for the composition "Meeting with Pariahs in India".
This work, seminal in the formation of the ideas which united the artist's works of the Indian cycle, exists in two versions. The first is in sanguine on cardboard, measures 44x33 cm, and is signed diagonally in cursive at lower right: "Boris Georgiev of Varna". The second is a fresco on fibreboard measuring 45x35 cm.