To counter the increasing cynicism, aggression, deviousness and madness of our millennium, it is imperative today for art to be aggressively-beautiful, child-like, pure, flamboyant, direct, and unafraid of any form of ugliness or deceit.

Without such beauty, life today is a desert sans water: the killing-badlands of mad-max skinheads. There is really no alternative any more; this madness and dishonesty has reached a point of Life Vs. Death.

I have been driven by dreams of pure beauty ever since I first saw a wild red rose in the first garden of my childhood in Calcutta. The fearless spectrum of stained-glass windows, gold-flecked miniatures and medieval illuminations in worship of a fearsome and dazzling beauty, mesmerised me into this state known as 'Artist'...

.... Now, Beauty is my armour. I am protected by it; saved by it. I have no intention of taking off my Full Metal Jacket --- for this is War. I am ready...

.... My armour shines like the sun, in links of gold and silver chain-mail, as I battle to keep Beauty alive. All the dazzling colours of Heaven and Hell's kaleidoscope flicker-off my metal warrior's garb; my face shines with the shocking colours of my war-paint... An artist, a writer, with my brush and pen my arms, I fear nothing... I am ready; ready for battle.

.... Look at all of my dreams. Read each and every word of my prayers. Now I lay them all bare before you; joyful and unafraid before your cynical gaze.

.... If any glimmerings of these, my private paradises and glittering infernos, touch even the smallest shadows of your soul, feel free to let me know all of your thoughts.

New York City, November 2000.