As a youngster I wondered what the change of centuries would be like, and whether I would live to see it. It seemed ages away then. The 90s brought me closer to a New Century/Millennium. What an exciting feeling that was.

FINALLY! IT WAS THERE! - And I was in London, one of the millions snuggled together against the bitter cold when Big Ben struck and clocks showed ‘00:00’ and Centuries /Millenniums changed hands. London was vibrant with myriad colours and sounds as January 1, 2000 was declared. The same happened across the world. Globetrotters rushed across the world to have the first feel of the rising millennium.

Every newspaper carried features, photographs, articles bursting with news of this great World Event. I couldn’t let such a big World Event (of a thousand years) pass off as past history. I wanted to cling onto it, and preserve it forever by capturing it in my paintings-making it immortal. I had been exploring the time leading up to and after the Millennium and wanted to immortalize the entire changeover. Newspaper collages helped me in putting my thoughts onto my canvases.

It was a vision which had been evolving in my mind and remained nascent for a while. It initially got encased within the entrails of the porthole(my earlier series), remaining within its confines for a while. But it gradually broke into the open and became a separate identity. It found a new niche for itself - ‘Playing with the Millennia’, which views the world at the Dawn of the New Millennium and the Dusk of the Previous.

By applying oil, acrylic and gouache along with newspapers of the Millennium Week and year ending 1999, I create those collage paintings, which capture a deep relationship between the 20th and the 21st centuries, bringing forth a treasure trove of ‘the past and the present’. These treasured paintings are overlaid on turn of the century editions of original newspapers, allowing the works to encompass time in motion.

Just ‘a date’ on the calendar changes a whole century/millennium. As clocks struck 12’ and year 1999 handed over to year 2000, millions watched in awe. A decade on from the thrill of the rising millennium, when it is getting blurred by the passage of time, I aim to keep alive the memory of that period in my paintings – ‘Heralding the 21st Century’ and the Convergence of, or the ‘Setting Apart’ of the two centuries.

Among other things I have given a new meaning to the going Green jargon by showing a new use for the used newsprint while preserving’ TIME’ itself on my canvases.

Though I do not follow a uniform style or format in this series, yet all my paintings speak the same language.

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