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 •My guest today is not only one of India’s most creative and most durable artists, he is also a wonderfully warm human being, the finest man to have as a friend in any city, particularly in this one — Mr Satish Gujral, welcome to Walk the Talk. And helping us in this is your talented son Mohit. I know very little about art. As you know, I’m a philistine. You’ve known me for many years now. From where do you find this creative energy? Every few years you produce so much work, and always something new. What is the secret?

It’s not a matter of the source of energy. It’s like . . . you don’t ask where I get the energy to breathe. Similarly, my energy to create is automatic. Without it I cannot live.

•Sir, hum toh pachaas sal ki umr mein buddhe ho gaye, but you carry on in your eighties.

When you are consistently in creative activity, it fills you up with a regime, a life, and a zest to live on and on. I cannot think I’m going to end. Only when I think this creativity may end, that will be the end of myself. The reason, I know: because I’m forced to live in a silent world. When there’s silence around you, the consequence is that you doubt your own being. You want to find proof of whether you exist, because nothing brings you proof that you are. Then I create, and when I create something out of nothing, it gives me proof that I’m a being, I’m there. But if I create the same thing again and again, it will be like inhaling what I have just exhaled. . . so every time, I want a new breath, a new style, a new thing to work with.

•You talked about living a life of silence. Now, living a life of silence is a big challenge. But sometimes, is it also a creative asset?

Silence works both ways. One is that I have already explained to you, that it will make you doubt the depths. On the other hand, it will make you listen to yourself. Poet (Mohammad) Iqbal once said, ‘Is khamoshi mein jayee, is khamoshi mein jayee, kitne barande na lein, taro ke kafilen ko meri sada daya ho.’ How high could my life rise that it provided guidance to the stars! When silence came, I started to live with it when I was eight years old. My soul forgot . . . I did not know it was also a gift. But about 10 years ago I had a (cochlear) implant. This implant brought back hope. Once this hope came back, at first I was excited, but soon I started to feel miserable. I had lived in a world of my own. Like a blind man, I was searching alone for life around you. Every face, he has an idea . . . he might think of a very ugly woman as very beautiful. Then if you bring him his sight back, it will uproot him from where he has lived. So it is with sound. Sound also makes an effect on the image around you. And you start living in that world. When my hearing came back, I (realised I had) made not what I thought they (others) have made. That was very disturbing. I could not reinvent things. So I got the implants removed.

•Because for nearly 70 years you were used to silence.

Sixty-five years. It was a long time. So much that when I approached the specialist in Sydney, Australia, that I want to have this implant, he was a bit uncomfortable. He thought that at this age, and after so long, he was not very sure that I’d have the stamina to take it. He warned me to be ready for a world I do not know. But I was excited, I wanted to have it. But then I do not regret I had it. It gave me no new vision for what I have lost. Now I think it (the silence) was a gift. Before, I thought it was a handicap.

•Your stamina nobody doubts, all of us envy you.

As I told you before, I myself did not know where my stamina came from. When you are able to listen to yourself, you discover a world unprejudiced. So I got ready for it. These last ten years have been the happiest for me. Because now I think it (silence) is a gift; before, I thought it was a curse.

•The silence. Your works, I see so many of them, and I say I know very little about art. There’s so much, so much empty space. Are you talking about silence — all this empty space?

Four years ago, I started to develop this style. The large spaces. I see the thankhas of Tibet with very large spaces, empty.

•Tibetan thankhas?

Like man alone in the universe trying to find his place through these large spaces. Gives meaning to these small things. So they are a discovery . . . also a part of the same process.

•Now tell us a little bit more about what is different with your new work?

I cannot explain how it came out of me. It is a process. The things that inspire me are mostly objects. Like I talked about thankhas. Similarly there are things like . . . years back, I was sitting next to a burning log. It burnt slowly, turned into cinder, a new colour, a new texture. I was excited and I wanted to recreate it. So my project on burnt wood began. Similarly these thankhas, and at the same time my return to silence, provided me an inspiration to create these spaces.

•When you looked at a burning log and the cinder, you decided to recreate those colours, those hues (in) . . . the burnt wood series. Why don’t you explain some of these paintings and sculptures to us?