A splash at 86

Congratulations. You just turned 86.
Yes, but I still feel like a child. It has been a fruitful journey, though I wish that my wife, Janine Mongillat, was with me to see the success.

You still paint a lot
I’m painting all the time. Even when I’m traveling, I ask people to get me canvases and paints. Sometimes I wake up at two in the morning and feel the urge to go and see my half-finished canvas.

How is it to see your old works that often surface at auctions and exhibitions? Recently your work Encountre sold for Rs 3.1 crore at an Osian auction.
It’s nostalgic and I’m happy that people are willing to pay so much for my works. However, despite the whopping figures at auctions, I haven’t exorbitantly increased my studio price to a level where it is out of reach for individual purchasers who are genuinely interested in art.

You painted a lot of expressionist landscapes but the bindu has become synonymous with your art. What is the origin of the bindu?
The bindu is the centre of creation and existence, progressing towards forms and colour as well as energy, sound, space and time. It is the supreme generating force, which symbolises the seed that bears the potential of all life. My association with the bindu goes back to my school days, when I was just seven. I was a very weak student and to improve my concentration, one day my teacher drew a bindu on the wall and asked me to keep looking at it till he returned. The practice continued for a couple of days, as he thought this would help concentrate my energies and thought. Years later, I thought of the bindu once again. But my teacher would certainly not have thought that it would have such a lasting impression on my mind.

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