You have been often referred to as an artist who widely employs popular kitsch elements. Do you like carrying this tag and being labeled so?
"First of all, let me make it clear that I do not entirely agree with the perception that I do only kitsch. It is true that I have used the popular kitsch elements in my works, but that's way back in the 1970s. Since then, I have evolved as an artist; have employed different...

You have been often referred to as an artist who widely employs popular kitsch elements. Do you like carrying this tag and being labeled so?
"First of all, let me make it clear that I do not entirely agree with the perception that I do only kitsch. It is true that I have used the popular kitsch elements in my works, but that's way back in the 1970s. Since then, I have evolved as an artist; have employed different techniques and media. It is true that I continue to be fascinated by popular kitsch elements in our everyday life, refer to them, and employ them as inputs. But that is all about it. These serve merely as starting point for me.

"Though Kitsch elements are now well on the way to becoming part of the mainstream art, it wasn't the case, say about three decades ago. I was among the very few artists then to employ them. Among those I knew, I could remember only Bhupen Khakhar having employed them at that time. But just for this very fact, it is unfair to bracket me as a kitsch artist."

What serves as the immediate provocation or the motivation for you to paint?
"I have been sensitized to three central issues - class, tradition and popular culture. To translate these concerns into my own artistic concern, I have played with the ingenious props and artifacts associated with religious icons and marketplace oleographs, Hindi film posters and calendar art. I have also explored the wayside shrines - a mosque or a temple - that become even more curious in urban settings. I have used the collage to bring out the ironies of modern life. I have framed the Haji Ali shrine through a sherbetwallah's Shop-on-wheels."

Can you take us through the defining phases in your career as an artist?
"As I said earlier, when I started off in the 1970s, my interest was kitsch or urban folk art that is expressed in so many different ways in India - on buildings, in shops, in living rooms. By the mid-seventies, I moved from collage-overlaps to sophisticated framing devices. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, I evoked the codes of lifestyle and class dominion through a series of interiors. These were my take on the price one pays for upward mobility. Prior to that, in the early 1980s, I had also started using family photographs for adding a touch of nostalgia in my works then. In the mid-1990s, I worked on a series of female nudes."

Critics had termed exploration of the relationship between men and women in your series of works on woman's body as a feminist statement. How do you react to this?
"I was termed a staunch feminist after I did a series of works on issues related to women and womanhood. A woman's vision is bound to be different from that of a man's largely because, even in today's modern world where woman is no longer restricted to the home, men and women inhibit different spaces.

"As you might be aware, my series of works, titled: "Mythescope" that were exhibited a couple of years ago showed how traditional dogmas, repeated through community rituals and the mass media, are internalized by women, no matter what class they belong to, or their degree of social consciousness. I had tried to question the meaning of rituals and the traditional values associated with them - both at a personal and at a social level. These works were done in relation to festivals like Karva Chauth."

So your work is not just about feminism?
"Absolutely! It is true that I have voiced the concerns of women and womanhood through my works. But I have not restricted myself to feminist issues. I had raised pointed objections to other social maladies through my work. While exploring the theme of gambling during Diwali, I showed dismembered hands resting on the edge of the table, with a green tablecloth resembling a forest that could catch fire if a firecracker burst. A faint xerox of child laborers making firecrackers in the factories of Sivakasi, pasted on the cloth, underlined the exploitation that goes on as the millions of Indians celebrate the festival of lights."

What kind of response do you expect from the viewer?
"A work of art is not fixed once and for all at the time of its creation. Rather varying viewers may justifiably interpret or work differently, and each such interpretation is seen as having validity equal to that of the artist's original intention. There need not be one particular message or meaning in a work. A picture should evoke diverse emotion in different people and be read on many distinct levels.

"I am quite clear that I am not interested in producing decorative works. Painting for me is a means of expression. It has to be thought provoking, and occasionally disquieting. Color, texture and tone are important to me. However, my paintings are not merely ornamental. They may be read at many levels, and are intended to disturb the viewer. I guess, there should enough scope or room for the viewer to form his/her perception of the work."

Tell us about your exhibition "The Secret garden" which is one of your famous works
"The Secret Garden" is a place where beauty blooms in unexpected corners, where fragments evoke by implications, the workings of the heart. Many of us have lived desert lives; tiny on the surface, enormous underneath. We are all filled with a longing for the wild, but there are few culturally sanctioned antidotes for this yearning. I think all of us really want a more than just what we can see. But it means breaking out of the whole frame of social and moral rules that keep individuals imprisoned - and sane. To bring an image from the unseen world into being, we must stir dull roots with spring rain, mixing memory and desire- and breed lilacs out of the dead land. Only by allowing our wild potency to be unleashed, and openly becoming our secret selves, we can see the flame in every bush."

Do you have preference for any particular style?
"I cannot typify my characters or my style as being either realistic or romantic. They represent a completely different visual style. I am constantly searching for a pictorial idiom that can match my perception. The idea is to find a metaphor to show my observation, what is not articulated, but is there. My work is mostly figurative. There is a photo-realistic quality to it. But it's not a mere documentation or any direct comment. There are contrasting images that combine together to throw up an entirely different and unrecognizable result.

"I have employed mixed media on paper with collage, crayon, watercolor and acrylic. I have screen-painted maps on the canvas. I have even screen-painted architectural blueprint. I have made use of xerox to form a collage. The subject matter and the medium should compliment each other."

What's the theme of your latest body of your work titled "Dream-Home"?
"As the title would suggest, the work captures our quest for that lovely abode that can often drive us to despair. Nowadays, we see newspapers carrying advertisements that promise the consumers a home of their dreams in heavenly settings. These literally lure buyers into going for "the best deal" in finding a shelter. But the home is not a mere dream; it's our basic need. The luxuries and the amenities apart, that sense of security behind the four walls is paramount.

"Everyone aspires for one's private space - in a tin-shed or in a fancy apartment. One may beautify it according to one's taste and capacity. Then there are those ads promising a nice bungalow on the outskirts of the city. It's an endless consumer cycle rolled by a chain of supply and demand. In the process of finding our dream abode, it doesn't strike us that we are ruining the countryside; we are paying scant respect for the environment. We do not question ourselves how the lack of infrastructure will be an impending hurdle in our quest for that home of our dreams."