Description from an article titled 'Miniature Painters as Historiographers' by Kanwal Khalid, via: [1]

Bawa Lakh Ram

One museum that has never been associated to Keher Singh is the National Museum Karachi whereone of his signed painting, has been discovered. It is titled ‘Bawa Lakh Ram’. (Fig. 3) On the lower side of the painting, inscription says ‘Baqalam Banda Keher Singh Musawwir’ i.e. ‘From the Pen of Humble Keher Singh Painter’. The dominating figure in the middle is a Bawa, sitting near a burnt tree trunk, with a Huqqah (smoking pipe) and smoke is coming out of his lips. He has a dark complexion with long white hair and beard. His head is covered with ash and there is a vermilion Tilak on his forehead. His naked body is draped with a wrap that has beautifully colored design. He is a huge tall person as compared to the people around him. Two women are serving him. The features and the dresses of the women are of nomadic origin. Respect and fear are prominent on their naïve faces. A man in the back is sitting on a tiger skin. His upper body is also covered with tiger skin and a red string is used as loincloth. He is holding some very colourful pieces of clothes and among them one can observe a small grotesque face painted in blue colour. This is a strange element. It seems that the painting has some kind of symbolic value. Although detailed accounts of a few other ascetics, who belonged to Ranjit Singh’s era, are published in different books8, but Lakh Ram is not one of them. Initially no reference was found but intense research revealed that a Mahant named Lakh Ram lived during Ranjit Singh’s time. He was mentioned in the memoirs written by Faqir Sayyad Qamar ul Din who was the son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s right hand man, Faqir Sayyad Noor ul Din. These memoirs have a very interesting narration about Bawa Lakh Ram. Faqir Qamar ul Din narrates, “During the Sikh era, Mahants were very well respected and people provided them with the finest food. As a result they would become very fat and extremely lazy. One such example is Lakh Ram who could not travel on anything but an elephant due to his extraordinary weight. One day this Mahant came to visit Faqir Sayyad Noor ul Din. He used the high platform of the house to get down from the elephant with the assistance of three or four men and even this small exercise tired him so much that it took a while before he could catch his breath. When Lakh Ram could talk, Malik Saif ul Din who was teaching the children of Faqir family, asked the Mahant, “Mahant Gi please tell me how much you eat?” First the Mahant complained about the weakness of his stomach. Then he said very sadly, “Early morning I can only eat two big Koondas (big containers) of curd with five Ser (almost 5 kilos) of Khand (sugar). Since I cannot digest Roti (bread) so I survive barely by drinking Yakhni (stock) of two goats. But in the evening I have some craving for sweets and six Ser Mithai (almost 6 kilos sweets) is all I can eat.” He felt sorry for himself that he could not drink milk late at nigh because of lack of appetite. At that time Faqir Sayyad Noor ul Din heard about Lakh Ram’s arrival and came to see him. Gave the Mahant five hundred rupees as he was leaving and all the men around him had to go through the ordeal of mounting the ‘one elephant on the other one’.9 The style of this painting is quite different from Keher Singh’s other paintings. From some angles it looks like a caricature of the main person, which supports the humorous description of the Mahant by Faqir Sayyad Qamar ul Din.