The work was the result of the many studies of burnt and destroyed vehicles that I had done during 2005 and 2006. It was only last year that the image emerged in its final form. Now it has the aura of a creature from a bygone era like a dinosaur displayed in a natural museum. It also resembles a vehicle at an automobile festival. Thus, it’s a mix of the past and the future — a permanent feature of Mumbai.

I think the one big event that has had a great influence on my work is India’s economic liberalisation. The opening up of the economy in 1991 coincided with my early days at art school. The audio-visual detonation that one saw with the opening up of the media directly impacted my sensibilities. I began to imbibe the images I saw on television and on the billboards in the city, worked with them — simplifying, layering and distorting them. It began with playful images and titles like Mom and Pop Art but later the works became less autobiographical.

My first large exhibition in New York titled First Information Report was a turning point in my career. The show comprised several sections of which Plat Du Jour (‘The Dish of the Day’) captured people coming out of railway stations. These were not conceived with political undertones but they began to speak a message-laden narrative after the Gujarat riots. They also spoke about the city in general and manmade disasters. I opened my practice to a wide range of impulses and stimuli not being bound by media, format or artistic language.

... contd.