Early Life
He was born Ghulam Rasool in a Kashmiri Muslim family of modest means in the Chinkral Mohalla habba kadal neighborhood of old Srinagar. He dropped out of school after his father's death and took up odd jobs like writing, painting signboards, weaving silk and whitewashing walls. In 1954 he won a scholarship to study fine arts under a celebrated Indian painter, N. S. Bendre in the city of Baroda, in the state of Gujarat, in western India.
Around the same time he did what was considered unusual and unacceptable in conservative Kashmiri society - he married his childhood sweetheart, Santosh, who was a Kashmiri Pandit, and also assumed her name.
Read more about this topic: Ghulam Rasool Santosh
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