On my first visit to India in 1980, the country was a mystery to me. Why should I feel so at home, like I was fulfilling a longing, returning to a place that I knew so well, when the truth was that I knew little about it? In 2023, after over thirty visits, I feel I know it even less.
It is a country that often requires you to turn your thinking on its head.
It is a mistake to approach it with a European mindset, leaving you flummoxed, bewildered, mystified and confused. It can put you in a spin, perhaps at times, even drive you to the verge of Doolally.
On arrival, I remind myself to change that mindset, as routinely as I would change the time on my watch.
I return home feeling overwhelmed, and with a need to fully absorb these missions.
Painting is my primary way of conducting this process, but I have also taken to these ‘encounters’; reproducing my diary entries, adding thoughts and observations, of some of the oddities that constantly stimulate me.
I hope they may entertain you, bewilder you and sometimes surprise you.