"ANGRY young man. Amitabh Bachchan may not know it, but Delhi could have coined the term for artist A Ramachandran way back in the 1960s. The first of his canvases that the city saw were dominated by tortured, tonsured bodies to express his anguish at the exploitation of the poor. Forty years later, beautiful lotus ponds have made their way into his works. Do they signify the mellowing of a man? ‘‘I guess that happens when a painter gets good food. He keeps in good health and makes happy images,’’ jokes Ramachandran, 58.

Anger, happiness, satire, travel, children... Ramachandran’s art has never been alienated from his life. And now vignettes of his life experiences in paintings, murals, stamps, books and illustrations are accessible to the viewer in an ongoing retrospective at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

The various periods of the artist’s life have been carefully broken into segments by curator Rupika Chawla. The first, fittingly titled ‘The Dark Period’ draws largely from his experience in communist Kerala. ‘‘The communist movement was gathering steam while I was growing up in Kerala. It obviously left an impression on my mind. We all wanted to rebel, we thought we could change the world with our art,’’ says Ramachandran...."

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(Source: Indian Express, 21 December 2003)