Shivdev Singh quit medical practice in 1990, and enrolled at the art school. ``I had worked very hard for a major part of my life, both my kids were well settled, and I decided to go in for what I had always loved- art. Initially it was very hard. The people at the school thought I was crazy. However, the chairperson of the course was very kind and designed special courses for me. Even now I am pursuing figure drawing and water colours.

Initially, whenever the class was going on a study ramble, they would think of all kinds of excuses to leave me out, but once they saw I was serious and saw the development in my work, their attitude changed.''

Shivdev has just finished a two month teacher/artist interaction at the City Museum and Art gallery at Lancaster.

Singh has put up 80 works, comprising mainly of water colours and a few charcoals. Thirteen water colours were on Punjab, and the art critics found them outstanding in their emotive appeal, impact and colours.

A peripatetic traveller, Singh reacts to his environment. Five of his paintings were a result of his visit to the Kenyan Safari as lions, zebras, ostriches and buffaloes, peered out from his paintings.

Also, his paintings are a lot about people. He is now working on a set of paintings which resulted from a visit to Greece... people near the sea shore. ``I like watching people on the streets going about their business... the brilliance of life and colour. I do not do any studio painting. ''

He once painted a vase of fresh flowers and then painted the same flowers 48 hours later. ``To me, more than the beauty of flowers, it was their shadow and texture which was more important.''

Singh was on a visit to Chandigarh, where he is now trying to make links with art and not with medicine, with which he has strong connections. For he was born in Barnala in 1936, did his MBBS from Patiala in 1958 and his MS from Amritsar in 1962.

Singh was brought to the PGI by one of the founding fathers of the institute, Dr. Anand. Training at the Harvard Medical School followed from 1966-68 as a research fellow. He came back to the PGI in 1969 and left Chandigarh for good in 1971. For the next 19 years he worked at various prestigious hospitals as a paediatric surgeon.

Singh's talent for drawing was evident even as a doctor.

``I used to doodle around a lot even as a child. My drawings on bones and embryology were used as slides for the three dimensional plastic models.'' Singh's shift into art has been extremely fulfilling . ``I do not miss medical practice at all.

I can still do surgery, but I do not feel like doing it all. Art has given me an opportunity to capture my thoughts which come in a flash,''.

For Singh, there is life beyond medicine. ``Each person who has a creative interest is a happy man. Art liberates you from the confines, mainly self-imposed by the society at large. I think you paint with your soul, and not with you hands. Each time you mix colours, a part of your heart and emotions get mixed with the colours. Your hidden emotions come out. It is a mirror of your mind- when you put it out you express yourself.

Art helps you to discover yourself, of meeting yourself.''

Singh's brilliant mind, coupled with the meticulous training of his profession, endows him with exuberant energy and a quicksilver agility. Perhaps that is the reasons why he chose water colours, and acrylic paint.

``I work very fast. And I do not have the patience to work with oil paints. I do not retouch my paintings, I do not have the capacity to recollect. If I go back to the same spot which I painted earlier, I cannot do it again because of the change of light and shadow. I never use an eraser. I do not erase even a single line.''

He normally always sketches the major shapes, but not the details. Singh paints a lot, and also discards a lot his own work.

A fast worker, he makes 22X30 inch landscapes in three to four hours.

Deeply absorbed in art, Singh is specially favoured by the gods, for he is lucky enough to be doing what he wants to, and is finding immense joy and satisfaction in it. ``Though I am technically not quite there, I am getting there,'' he says with all humility.