My experimentation with painting was a result of a conversation I had with one of my professors from college. I’m teaching Interior Design (among other subjects) in my own college after completing my B.Arch. and he along with two of my batchmates are co-faculty for this studio.

I don’t recollect the entire conversation but Kaushik was talking about how we(Bombayites/maybe generalizable to Indians) stand much closer to each other(as opposed to say Europeans where ‘SPACE’ is just space)

Our idea of personal space is that much lesser probably since we never have the luxury of leaving a good foot distance between us and some stranger(who might even be incredibly sweaty) whether it is on the roads or in some mode of public transport. It probably never even crossed our minds to imagine ourselves inscribed within a circle of ‘x’ radius designating ‘our space’. Why think about something that we can’t implement?

It is a simple matter of mind boggling density really.

Per ha population or some such jargon to phrase our living conditions clinically so that we don’t end up cringing all the time.

I actually began observing body language a little more closely post this conversation.

I was working in the design cell of college on the ‘Dharavi redevelopment project’ and we usually had foreign students who had an interest in Dharavi or had their thesis located there strolling in and out.

And I would always remember Kaushik while interacting with them. They would stand about 60, almost 75 cms, away from me and I would be straining to hear and interpret what they were saying since most of them were quite soft spoken.But I couldn’t move closer since I felt this strange pressure to not violate their space, something I don’t feel with people from my city(also with the latter I rarely have the choice).

In contrast, I noted the groups of students sprawled all over college and saw that they were almost in a huddle even if there was a considerable amount of space!

My mind has been on this for some time and I recently made a series of 3 painting of my house with these thoughts floating in my brain. (I have been trying to create a series of works on my house and after my article the ‘Changing house’ this was the second idea I worked on.)

The terrible yellow blotches are the pieces of furniture in my house.

When we talk of the city of Mumbai we talk about space/lack of space, maddening densities and how the government is not doing anything about this. About how there are so many people migrating into the city to try to change their fortunes here that they make do with living crammed up into tiny ant hole spaces( where there are often fourteen people sharing one room).

I was thinking about this and I wondered what would happen to my house(a converted 1 BHK house) if it was to be given to the city to aid in solving a micro-minuscule portion of the rent problems.

It wouldn’t an iota of difference but space is ‘SPACE’ here and it made sense to me to paint the whole section in a wash of red since it was more likely that my house would be flooded with people.

People as liquid matter maybe. Blending into one viscous entity that would take over my whole house and maybe exist even in the crevices in the masonry.