I was born and brought up, till I was a boy, in a village. What made me a painter is probably the memories I have always cherished of my village which has now vanished, swallowed up by the expanding city. The rural Bengal and its diverse art traditions still sustain my sensibility as a painter. Folk arts will never cease fascinating and exciting my imagination. Dolls and clay images fashioned by the folk artists are inalienable parts of my happiest childhood memories and, I think, such spontaneous painting and sculpting project the continuous process of man’s creative thinking and self-expression. What we do as painters or sculptors extends the tradition built up through centuries by our forefathers who painted and sculpted, made dolls or created images for worship. I feel that I belong to the same tradition, I am their descendant, through born in a different age and society. The context of my art is different but its form and idiom remains the same. My painting is inspired by contemporary reality. It refl ects our hopes and aspirations, life and society, our political and religious preoccupation’s and everything that happens around us.

I try to remain myself in all that I think about, and do, in painting. Having spent the early part of my life in a rural ambience, I now live in a city and do not feel myself an alien here. So my world is not confined to rural Bengal and folk are anymore, it centres round the city. My painting draws its strength from the impacts on my mind of events in the city life. But I still admire the folk artists, the simplicity and spontaneity of folk art. There are, therefore, pronounced elements of folk art in my painting though its content is my experience of the immediate reality around me. Folk form and feel come to my painting as naturally as the tune of folk songs that springs from the depth of the folk-singer’s heart. I try to achieve the same simplicity and directness in my work."