Forts & Royal Cities

The fort at Jaisalmer is sandstone the colour of the desert it watches. Mehrangarh in Jodhpur stands a hundred metres above the blue town and looks bored of being looked at. Kumbhalgarh’s wall runs for thirty-six kilometres along a ridge no one needs reminded of. Janjira sits in the sea off the Konkan coast and has never been taken.

Compositions across this collection — from Agra to Hampi, from Kangra to Bekal, with Rajasthan’s Hawa Mahal and the long stone of Mumbai’s Marine Drive folded in — paint the country’s forts and royal cities at the hour their stone is most alive. Often that is late afternoon, when the light arrives at a low angle and the sandstone, the basalt, the granite each return it differently.

These are paintings of permanence at the hour permanence shows itself.