You started as the creative director of an advertising agency, to become an illustrator and then settled into paintings. How did the shifts in your career occur?
I began my career as a commercial artist. After studying commercial art at Abhinav Kala Mandir, Pune, I worked with a few advertising agencies in creative positions. I also won the award from London Advertising in 1997. It was for paintings for a calendar...

You started as the creative director of an advertising agency, to become an illustrator and then settled into paintings. How did the shifts in your career occur?
I began my career as a commercial artist. After studying commercial art at Abhinav Kala Mandir, Pune, I worked with a few advertising agencies in creative positions. I also won the award from London Advertising in 1997. It was for paintings for a calendar on 'Philosophy by Various Saints'. I also worked in many leading publications as an illustrator and a designing consultant before I took to painting full-time. It was an instinctive decision. As I was doing book covers - I did over five hundred of them- at one point of time I felt that enough was enough and that I must try out painting. Once I made my choice, I never looked back.

In what way the above three vocations compliment each other and in which respect they differ from each other?
The three vocations are ultimately all to do with creativity and visualization, but the demands are different. As a painter you are free to do the subject matter of your choice. You are free to paint what you feel like. I probably craved for this artistic freedom, and was not ready to be bound by the constraints of the advertising field where you need to consider the customer profile, the product, the market and what not! You cannot also go beyond the brief given to you.

However, my earlier professional experience in these fields contributed to my development as an artist. It's just that I unlocked my potential as an artist fully once I took to painting full-time. Though it was a risk from the point of view of my career, the sense of freedom and the joy that I experienced in painting was more precious.

Your work was much talked about after you won an award at the National Exhibition of Young Painters in Kolkata, organized by M. F. Husain. How has your career taken off since then?
I participated in the National Exhibition of Young Painters in Kolkata, organized by M. F. Husain, though I was not very sure how my work would be received. Obviously, winning the award was a bonus. It came as a big boost. Since then I have exhibited my work in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai apart from several solo shows and group exhibitions in India.

Tell us about your style that is characterized by contemporary modernist figures.
I have developed my own style, which has an imprint of my unadulterated rural upbringing juxtaposed with modern urban values that I have imbibed during my stay in a city like Pune. My style of acrylic paintings accommodates contemporary modernist figures in rough, strong brush strokes.

You are known for your paintings with philosophical overtones and a 'serious' subject matter.
I do some reading and observe the people around me to understand human nature. These observations and the subsequent ruminations reflect in my work. I often use the human figure to tell a story, with symbols and clues scattered over my works. I use everyday themes like parent and child ("Father and Child", "Mother and Child"), and subject matter like priests and turbaned village men to bring out various shades of human emotions, bordering from immense selflessness to extreme individualism. I have worked on themes like Peace, Quilt, and the Pundit (erudite men) that all convey a message.

Your paintings are often an outrageous and bold interplay of colors. How do you make your choices?
Yes, I do turn my canvas into a profusion of color, rendering contemporary, modernist images in rough, strong brush strokes that border on the fantastic. The roughness probably comes from my rugged rural upbringing. You will often see strong reds and blues in my work, but I prefer to work in all color schemes that suit the subject.