Between Mumbai’s intensity and Oslo’s quiet.

I am an engineer by profession, and I have never received formal training as an artist.

I was born and raised in a middle-class family in Mumbai. My father used to draw, and some of my earliest memories of drawing come from newspaper puzzles in which numbered dots formed a picture when connected. Watching an image slowly emerge from a series of simple marks fascinated me. Drawing later remained part of my school life through extracurricular activities.

When I began studying engineering, art naturally became less central, but I never completely lost interest in it. During those years, I experimented with conceptual paintings. I had ideas I wanted to express, but at that stage I did not yet have the artistic vocabulary or technical confidence to communicate them effectively. When the work received little response, I gradually stopped making conceptual paintings.

After beginning my professional career in Mumbai, I returned to art through watercolour. These paintings were appreciated by many people around me and gave me the confidence to continue. Later, during my third job, I began creating commissioned portraits. This became another important phase of my development, and I painted portraits for many individuals and families — one life running alongside the other, an engineer by day and a painter by instinct.

On 3 July 2019, the company I was working for sent me to Norway on an IT assignment. My move to Norway marked a completely different chapter.

The early period was filled with exploration, but also with the struggle of adjusting to a new life. The contrast between Mumbai and Oslo was dramatic. Mumbai had always been crowded, noisy and constantly moving, while Oslo felt remarkably quiet and spacious. My first Norwegian winter was particularly difficult: the darkness, the cold and the unfamiliar surroundings created a sense of distance and isolation.

Then the pandemic began, and I found myself effectively stuck in Norway.

The winter of 2020–21 was especially intense. The roads were quieter, covered in snow and often almost empty. I was struggling emotionally and mentally. I once left my bag at the office. On several occasions, I missed my station while travelling. I began listening to audiobooks, including the Bhagavad Gita and a book about hypnosis and strengthening the mind. Through these, I discovered a method of meditation and began practising it.

As winter slowly faded, something also began to change within me.

I joined the Blank Space Oslo community, where artists gathered for a drawing workshop every Tuesday. During one of these sessions, my friend Axel saw a painting I had made during the winter. He looked at it and said, “It’s amazing.”

That simple moment had a lasting impact. Someone else had recognised something in the painting that I had not yet fully recognised myself. It gave me the confidence to look again at the work I had created during a difficult period.

That is where this journey began.

The quiet streets, winter light, unfamiliar landscapes and emotional experience of living between two very different worlds gradually became central to my work. Painting became not only a way of observing my surroundings, but also a way of understanding them — and of understanding myself.

Today I still work in IT. I am, if I am honest, quite good at it — which has made leaving harder than I expected. So for now I hold both: spreadsheets by day, portraits and Norwegian winters by night, waiting for one of them to finally win.