Painting from a picture even if naturalistic was more inspiring than nature itself just as the most beautiful bird songs and the loud thunder in the sky were no basis for an aesthetic understanding of Indian classical music.

After graduating from high school in 1944 I started working with the British War Effort office. I used to paint on my own in my spare time. I was already trying to be a self taught painter and musician because of the tremendous desire to control my intense energy and passion by channeling them into art, music and reading crazy books. At the age of 20 I was making efforts in three directions: painting, music and practicing three asanas of yoga (shirshana, padmasana and mastyasan.) Everything that I was doing was concentrating on development in those directions. Not so successfully I might add.

During 1944-45 when I was about 20 years old I became curiously aware of some kind of modern art. Huge billboards advertising the latest popular films displayed sexy actors and actresses copied from photographs of unrelated scenes from the current film in a very realistic manner. Using lots of colors, shapes and movement the total effect was one of a monstrous abstraction. I always made a point of reserving a ticket weeks in advance for the Saturday evening 6:30 pm show where Bombay's most elegant and perfumed people gathered to see the latest American movie in the Metro theatre.

Along with the elite crowd were the modern murals painted on the walls of the theatre by art school students under the guidance of the art school director Mr. Girad who was then well acquainted with the modern trends of art in pre war Europe. Observing these paintings in that dignifed theatre gave me another view to modern art which was more refined than the posters seen outside the theatre.

Two hundred years of British rule had already destroyed the so called Indian cultural roots in visual art and literature. The cultural sensibilities of an average Indian were wiped out except for their spiritual visitation to the deities in the temples. These deities have an inherent modernity in the execution of their forms such as animal heads, multiple arms and the smearing of red sindur. All the monumental temples were historical relics and were visited only to get a sip of some cultural “amreet”, the rejuvinating juice.

That could have happened to Indian classical music too but fortunately the princely states patronized this music in its original ancient form.

As for visual art the maharajas preferred British painters and Indian painters like Pandit Gopal Deuskar and Pandit Raja Ravi Varma and many others who worked in the realistic European style.

My job as an agent of the British War Effort office was to check the materials produced in small factories which were scattered around the city of Bombay and the surrounding suburbs. I used to purchase very expensive paint materials from Bombay Stationary Mart. A vermilion water color tube 2 ins. long was costing almost 10% of my monthly salary. Going to work I had to pass a factory where they were making the huge cinema posters. There I saw mountains of very bright colors on a large palette with which they painted the posters. This was shocking to me because I knew the price of paint. On inquiry I found from this very friendly poster painter that the colors were made on the site by his helpers. He also advised me that these particular colours don't last more than a year or two and that as they were very destructive to the paint brushes I should use a painting knife. As the knives needed to be flexible he told me to purchase springs from old gramophones and have a metal worker shape them.

Eventually this introduced me to the textured painting.