I used to be a house painter.
My first big painting job was in my hometown, in Pune, Maharashtra.
My client was a woman named Pranav, who lived in my village and was suffering from a mental illness.
In the late 1950s, she had a daughter, a beautiful girl named Nika.
I used my own skills to paint Nika’s house in a city.
I painted the walls, ceilings, and floors of the house, using black-and-white brushstrokes.
I did not have any experience painting houses.
I had only seen it done in film and had no idea what I was doing.
When my client told me about the painting, I said, “No, this is a real painting.”
I didn’t know how to paint, and I had no training.
But my client was impressed.
I gave her my full commitment.
I wanted to make her happy, and she gave me the confidence to start painting.
It was my first time in painting a country.
I learned to paint on a canvas.
I was the only woman in the room.
I started painting at 11 years old, and it was not easy.
In a couple of months, I had the first paintings done.
In that period, I did two more paintings in Panchayats, and then I did three more.
My friend and I started to visit places.
I got a job at a shop that sold kitchen paints, and we started doing workshops.
I took the painting lessons of our neighbours and the art teachers, who gave me basic brushes.
The first time I painted a country house, it was at Kota.
I worked on the house with a couple other young people.
We painted a large courtyard, which I painted in four colors.
It took a lot of work, and the paint was still wet, so I would take it to the local shop and paint in red and green.
When I was 14 years old and finished, my friends and I took it to Delhi.
In Delhi, I took classes and got an apprenticeship.
Then I did a small show in New Delhi, and by 18, I was a painter.
I also painted the houses of my neighbours in Poona, Chandni Chowk and in a village in Thane, and did paintings in Chandni Ghat.
It all happened in a couple months.
My clients were very kind to me, and they said, “‘Oh, you will become a great painter someday.’
I was so happy.
I thought I was in the right place.
Then, I decided to do a bigger show in a larger city.
That was in 1950.
I stayed there for seven years, and painted houses in every city and town.
I made paintings in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Cochin, Ahmednagar, Kanpur, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Hyderabad.
At the end, I painted all of the houses in all the cities in the world, and even in the U.S. They all looked exactly like the paintings I had done in India.
It had a huge impact on my art.
My career started with my second painting, which was in 1962.
I lived in New York City for two years and made about 50 paintings.
My paintings were sold in bookstores, and there was a huge demand for them.
I went to Europe to work on my first painting, but I could not find a studio.
I returned to New York, and my first project was done.
My family was supportive of me, but it took a long time for my clients to buy me a studio and pay for the paintings.
I never painted again after that.
In 1973, I finished painting a large country house in New Jersey, but that was it. I didn