On new years eve 1999, at the birth of a new era, I died.
I was alive with no identity, no purpose, and no love.
20 years later, after 16 years in isolation, I was reborn.
I became alive in my world, in my reality and in my essence.
My only source, a handful of supernatural experience
that inspired art, purpose and the ultimate love.
ACT : 1
​I didn't feel understood
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There was a time I felt like nothing in the world made sense to me. I was trying to live a life that wasn’t mine. One that I had learned from watching others.
One that I thought I was supposed to follow. I copied. I observed. I adapted. I performed. I kept changing myself depending on who I was around and what was expected of me. But underneath all of that I didn’t feel real. I didn’t feel safe. And I didn’t feel understood.
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I never really trusted the world. I couldn’t understand people. I could feel them, their energy, their intentions, the way they were lying to themselves and each other.
And that only made me more disconnected. I didn’t know how to take part in any of it. I didn’t know how to play along with systems that didn’t make sense to me. But I did it anyway. I showed up to things I didn’t believe in. I worked in jobs that meant nothing to me. I laughed in places I felt numb. I was copying a life that everyone else seemed to be okay with. And somewhere in the middle of it all I lost my voice completely.
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When things became unbearable at home, I gave up the only thing that kept me connected to myself. I gave up art. I gave up creating. I gave up the world I used to escape to. And I tried to take responsibility for everything and everyone. But in doing that, I disappeared even more. There were no boundaries. There was no room for how I really felt. There was no room for me.
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​Something inside had to change
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I knew, fundamentally, something had to change.
At the time, I wasn’t aware of how I could influence the outside world. I didn’t realise I had the power to shape my experience, or to change how people responded to me, or how they treated me. Nothing around me reflected what I needed. There was a clear disconnect between what I saw the world as, and how other people seemed to move through it.
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I sensed there was something off in how I was decoding reality. Or maybe I was seeing it clearly, but I just wasn’t bound to it.
I wasn’t inspired by it - It all felt two-dimensional.
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So I realised — the change I was craving could never come from the outside. It wasn’t about waiting for the world to change so I could. I knew I would have to change. I would have to purge some of the conditions, the ideas, the identities I was holding onto. I’d have to remove myself from the version of me that had been built by my environment. I’d have to step into an uncertain version of myself — one that didn’t even exist yet — in order to see a world that could exist beyond what I currently knew.
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I knew something was in me, something waiting to be discovered, appreciated, and loved. It felt like I was being pushed, even forced, into a challenging, uncomfortable version of the real world — just to make me reject it completely and go deeper into myself.
To quieten the noise. To start looking at everything from a new lens — as a creative, as a human, as someone trying to make sense of it all.
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Something had to change.
Either I had to change the way I saw the world, or I had to let go of the version of me that couldn’t survive in it.
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​Contemplating Death in Life
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Maybe the only absolute way to end the current experience is to kill off the observer of the experience. But if I was to kill off the observer, I would no longer have the senses to experience anything. So what then. Could there be a possibility of collaborating with the observer, which is me, and finding a way to die in life and be reborn in life.
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To return as someone untouched - unconditioned, unburdened, completely clear of any historic trauma.
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To be in the world with complete neutrality to see through the eyes of nature to navigate everything from a place of deep energetic consciousness.
Could I really change my life through a kind of death or would I have to purge everything my interests - my belongings - my name - my parents - my house - my history - everything that makes me who I am beyond myself?
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Everything that creates the perception of me from others. How could I die to that identity and leave behind the unnecessary baggage and the karmic energy I’ve inherited. Could a new creation be born from that. Could art and my capacity to dream begin again but this time from the most beautiful place in the world? From a place where life life source itself is at the centre of that creativity. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t speak its language.
But I knew I was from it. I could feel it. And so even if I did die in this life there is no way that creativity would ever allow me to stop contributing.It would keep using me as a conduit as a messenger as a vessel to bring something real into this world Could I give it all up not to leave but to return into my own body as a different entity.
Not him but someone else. Someone with a new name new energy new purpose one that will leave a mark in this world forever.
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​Conforming Was the Ultimate Death of Self
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Following the destruction of everything I thought I was, my conditioned mind began to persuade me to choose the safer route. It told me to aim for certainty, to join the tribe, to fit in. It convinced me that this deep feeling of purity, magic and authenticity was too painful to follow in real life. That it would be easier to let go of that part of me, and instead, be like them.
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Every day became a challenge. Mentally, emotionally, physically. I felt completely unequipped for the transition into the so-called real world.
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I didn’t know how to respond to the demands of daily life. All that time I had spent in my imagination, in the freedom of creativity and art, hadn’t prepared me for a world that lived without it. So I did the only thing I could. I shut off all thoughts of creativity. I surrendered. I conformed to what was in front of me.
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What happened next was strangely eye-opening. Over the course of four years, I was surprised by how easy it became to keep taking that step. To conform further. To adopt the behaviours, beliefs and routines of the people around me. I fitted in. I had friends. I was entirely accepted as a member of the community, doing what they did, living how they lived.
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The discomfort of Certainty
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There was comfort in the certainty. Thinking as a collective was easy. Complying in order to preserve life became my new purpose. But even in the middle of all this newfound acceptance, something inside me wasn’t right. I knew, deep down, I wasn’t being true to myself. There was a constant discomfort — an underlying emotion that followed me everywhere. I kept pushing it away, kept trying to dismiss it. But the more I resisted it, the stronger it became.
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Eventually that feeling took form. It became a voice in my mind.t started to question me. Why are you no longer interested in thinking. Why are you no longer dreaming. Why are you no longer willing to experience your superpower.
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I tried to ignore it. I focused on what was in front of me, even if it felt foreign, mechanical, and empty. That voice seemed to be offering me a way back, but I didn’t trust it anymore. Not now that I was a part of the real world. I told myself I had no choice but to suppress it. But the battle inside me grew louder. It became too painful to bear. My spirit was already weakened by the process of assimilation. I started to feel numb. Lost. Emotionally drained. Something dark began to take over. That negative energy showed up in my behaviour. It damaged relationships. It poisoned connections. I withdrew from the people I loved. I shut down. I didn’t have the strength to ask anyone for help.
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And then one day, when the weight became too much to carry, when I could no longer find the strength to pretend —
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I attempted the unthinkable. To end my life.
To silence the voice.To end me.
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I sensed it was that voice. The same one I had tried to silence. She came back, not as an intruder but as a guide. She whispered something I couldn’t ignore: You are still here. You did not die. There is a reason you remained. And in that moment, something changed. I understood that if I was given this second chance — this breath, this day, this life — then I had to do something with it. Not just anything. Something true. Something eternal. - I had to listen to that voice. I had to understand it. I had to become it.
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So on the eve of the new millennium, with fireworks about to light the sky, I made the most radical decision of my life. I chose transformation. I chose rebirth. I went home and burnt every possession I owned. I relinquished my identity. I erased my past, my name, my image — everything that kept me tied to who I thought I had to be. In the ashes of my old life, I wrote a new path forward: a sacred list of 16 tasks — commandments for a new way of living.
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I committed to listening to that voice. To honouring her.
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I burnt all my possessions.
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I relinquished my name.
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I became Brand New.
I wrote down a list of 16 life tasks:
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Dedicate your life to art.
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Become an example of artistic freedom.
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Understand and embrace the pain.
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Look for the god in everything.
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Become the master of your mind.
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Study the world, its processes and its history.
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Be free​​ (And 9 more sacred instructions I’ve lived by every day since.)
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These weren’t just ideals. They were survival. They were medicine. They were my way home.
So I disappeared from the world. I stepped away from the noise, the performance, the illusion. For the next sixteen years, I sat in a room — alone, yet never truly alone. I was accompanied by the voice, the vision, the tasks. And the quiet, unwavering love of my mother. It was not an escape. It was a return.
What I experienced during that time was not a retreat, but a resurrection. A pure and total transformation. From emptiness into fullness. From fear into something wild and divine.
I was no longer that scared adult, shaped by systems that denied his soul.
I was like nature. Rooted. Boundless. Unafraid of the unknown.
I was becoming what I was always meant to be,not a reflection of the world, but a mirror for it.
I emerged not as the person I was before, but as a vessel. A witness - A servant of creativity in its highest form.
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​The night I died ... 1999
New Years Eve.
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​The Breakthrough
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I woke up to a new reality.
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I opened my eyes to the sterile white light of a hospital room. For two days, I had been unconscious, drifting somewhere between this world and the unknown. I looked down and saw tubes in my arm, machines beside me keeping time with my fragile breath. A vase of fresh flowers sat by my bed. I was still here. Alive.
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Something had stopped me. Something, or someone, had saved me from slipping away.
ACT : 2
​First Step to the Unknown
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Now I had my freedom. I was in a new world — in my mind, in my heart, in my spirit. But in the real world, things were more difficult. My actions had caused deep heartache and disruption for the people around me. Everything had shifted. The way I connected, the way people saw me, the way I once belonged — all of it had changed.
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Even though I was free, I knew I was only at the beginning. The first step on an incredible and enduring path that could just as easily become another painful experience.
So what do I do?
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I need a plan. I know I want to express myself.
I know art is my path — my medium, my vehicle.
I know I want to get closer to God.
I know I want to understand the connection between reality and consciousness. But I still have to live. I have to eat. I have to survive. I’m in a room.
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What I could do is work nights. Find jobs in factories or warehouses, places where I’ll remain unseen. I’ll labour through the night, and during the day — and in any space in between — I’ll dream my dream. I’ll find a way to reconnect to that creative energy that once guided me. The same energy that brought me to this moment of awakening.
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If I was a part of creation, then surely all I had to do was create — and allow the world and the universe to unfold from that perspective of creativity. Surely that was it. That was the way.
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I know it won’t be easy. I may face years, even decades of difficulty. But at the core of it all will be the unshakable belief that I’m exploring who I really am. That I’m living in the world as myself. That authenticity and individuality must be at the heart of everything I experience — no matter how it looks from the outside, how it’s measured by others, or how it’s perceived by the world.
And so the first step is simple.
Have a plan. Work. Be in isolation.
Begin studying every form of art, every expression of creativity, with a hunger and desire like never before. Absorb it like your life depends on it. And get to a place where your technical ability becomes second nature. Where whatever you imagine, you can bring into the world — effortlessly, instinctively, truthfully.
That was the first step.
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The Age of Creation
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My artistic journey didn’t begin in studios or schools. It began in solitude, with little formal training, sketching whatever came to mind and painting visions that felt larger than life. I started as a casual illustrator and fine artist, drawn to Renaissance-inspired religious imagery and traditional processes. There was something grounding in the precision and discipline of it — but something was missing.
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The more I worked with paints, watercolours and pastels, the more I felt confined by them. These materials, while beautiful, couldn’t hold the kind of energy I was trying to express. I wasn’t searching for realism. I was searching for something multidimensional — something unfamiliar to the eye, futuristic, layered, and alive. I wanted art that bent time, challenged logic, and reflected the way I saw and felt the world.
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So I began to evolve.
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I immersed myself in contemporary mediums, stepping into a world of creative technology. I explored image manipulation, 3D animation, graphic design, and motion. Every experiment opened a new possibility. I wasn’t replacing the old — I was merging it with the new. Years of trial and error turned into a process I could trust. One that let me honour traditional craftsmanship while pushing the boundaries of what art could be.
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I found a rhythm between the past and the future. Between technique and vision. Between discipline and imagination.
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The Digital Awakening
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The breakthrough came when I started merging digital tools with traditional elements. Just a tablet, a digital pen, and editing software, that’s all I needed. I began layering scanned photos, old paintings, and raw graphics. That’s when something clicked. A new visual language started forming. One that connected past and future, tradition and technology, memory and imagination.
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The very first time I ever used a computer to make art was at school. It was basic, but it didn’t matter. I remember creating a piece around modern masterpieces and getting an A+. I just knew, even then, that digital was where I came alive.
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Later at college, I’d spend hours in a room by myself, lost in Coral Paint and early 3D cameras. The tech was old, but my vision wasn’t. I wasn’t just playing — I was creating full stories, whole worlds. My tutors could see it too. They always pushed me towards digital. They knew I had a feel for it. Somehow I could move through those tools like they were extensions of me. Two dimensions weren’t enough. I needed five. I needed depth, energy, feeling.
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By 1996, I was building full digital portfolios. Back then I knew the future would be digital. And that’s where I put my focus.
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But I never turned my back on tradition. I studied fine art for years. Thousands of artists, every movement, every culture. I wanted to understand how stories were told through paint, through sculpture, through texture. Then I took that knowledge and fused it with what was coming. That mix — the old world and the new — became my foundation. I didn’t want to just follow. I wanted to lead. I wanted to master the tools and the storytelling.
Not to be the best in the room but the best to ever do it.
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My Signature Process​
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Photographs sit at the heart of my process, they’re my starting point, my reference, my trigger. I’m drawn to images that hold feeling, mystery, or story. When one captures me, I begin imagining how I can evolve it, layering meaning, memory, and energy into something new.
Some photographers just document. But others — the special ones — can see deeper. They catch a moment in a way that transforms it. They turn the ordinary into something profound. Their images aren’t just visuals — they’re invitations. And through them, I get to step into another dimension.
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That’s how my first digital artwork was born.
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I found an old black-and-white photo of my grandmother — worn, scratched, almost unrecognisable. But I could still feel her. That image became the beginning of a personal journey. I experimented with ways to reimagine it — some versions abstract, others more literal. I brought in colour, texture, symbols, and spirit. I wanted it to breathe.
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For six years, I explored, trying every medium I could: oil, watercolour, pen, digital brushes, mehndi.
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Searching for a process that felt alive. Then, in 2007, on a sleeper train in India, it clicked. I traced the photograph digitally, reshaped its lines and tone, and blended it with paint. Suddenly, it worked. My past and future fused into one.
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Since then, I’ve refined the method — always pushing the balance between technology and tradition, memory and imagination.
Every piece is a continuation of that discovery.
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My Family of Creatives
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The process changed everything. I’d found a way of making art that felt both ancient and modern — expressive, alive, personal. I started reaching out to photographers whose work moved me. I wanted to take their images and reimagine them, to see what we could create together. To my surprise, many said yes. Over the next four years, I worked with a diverse group of photographers from all over the world, each bringing their own perspective.
These collaborations opened new doors. I played with different styles and subjects, making hundreds of artworks shaped by the dynamic between their lens and my vision.
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Some of the most powerful partnerships were with photographers whose work explored spirituality, tradition, and everyday human experience.
Their images — raw, honest, and full of spirit — gave me a window into lives I had never seen. I felt pulled to meet them, to step into their worlds.
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After 30 years in England, I travelled to India. I met photographers in deserts, cities, temples, villages — each place rich with story. In Rajasthan, I worked with Devansh Javeri to create a visual book celebrating classical and gypsy dancers. In Nepal, I connected with Prabhat Za, whose photos captured landscapes and people with quiet depth. I also spent time in the US, working with John Awok and his circle of shamanic creatives, where our collaborations blended art, writing, and spirit.
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Over time, I connected with more than 200 photographers and made over 2,000 pieces — each a meeting point of their vision and my imagination. These weren’t just artworks; they were stories, energies, conversations. They carried something real.
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Some moments that stand out:
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Creating a dance archive in the Rajasthani desert with Devansh Javeri
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Exploring sacred mountain scenes with Prabhat Za in Nepal
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Making short films with San Cohen and Black creatives in San Francisco
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Learning the rhythm of southern India with Arun Titan in Chennai
These collaborations expanded my sense of what’s possible. They reminded me that art isn’t just made — it’s shared. And through that sharing, something greater takes form.
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ACT : 3
Mum Inspired Me to Explore
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I was never short of inspiration. My mind was full of curiosity, always wandering into different versions of reality, pulling magic from the everyday — especially from nature and people. But the deepest inspiration came from my mum.
She lived with arthritis most of her life. Moving through the world wasn’t easy for her, but she moved through it with grace, love, and a quiet strength that shaped everything I knew about compassion. She was my reference point for kindness, the one who kept me grounded, who helped me stay soft even when life got hard. Her calmness, her ability to negotiate pain with such dignity — it made me look at the world differently. It made me listen more.
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My art began at home, on the kitchen table, while she moved quietly in the background, cooking, humming, always nearby.
-That’s where many of the artworks I now call masterpieces were born — not in studios or big spaces, but in the heart of the home. Everything I made came from that simplicity, that love, that closeness.
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She came from a story of resilience. One of 15 children, arriving from Africa into Heathrow without her parents, building a new life in a strange land. Children raising children. And yet, from that place, she somehow gave me a world full of warmth. Through her personality, I got to know people — their moods, their pain, their depth — and in turn, I got to know myself.
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And so people became my muse. Their behaviours, their contradictions. I was fascinated by how love shows up — and how pain speaks through silence or action.
I could feel the invisible stories people carry. Everyone has one. Some loud. Some quiet. But all of them real. That’s what I wanted to capture. Not just beauty, but humanity.
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There was also so much culture around me, so many thoughts in my mind. I was constantly reading, learning, trying to make sense of it all. There just weren’t enough hours in the day to create everything I imagined. I had a million ideas, artworks I could see in my head clearly, but couldn’t yet produce — like I needed technology to catch up with my imagination. At the root of it all, though, was her. And something bigger — a deep connection to creativity, to spirit, to something unseen but always felt. That’s where the love came from. And that’s where the art came from too.
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My Spirituality
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For me, spirituality has never been a religion. It’s a relationship — a constant inner dialogue. A place where honesty meets imagination. Where you strip everything away and build something true. I was lucky. I was born into a family whose entire existence was a spiritual one. Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity — not just belief systems, but lived experiences. Their art, their rituals, their philosophies — all part of our everyday.
But it wasn’t just about gods and temples. I saw the symbols. I felt the layers. I understood that beyond all the stories and scriptures was something else — something deeper. A truth. One that sat underneath the noise of the world.
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I was hungry for that hidden world. The secrets buried in the teachings of ancient civilisations who tried to make sense of the stars, the soul, and life.
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I started feeding that part of me with everything I could find. Books. Music. Art. Conversations with souls who had seen beyond the veil. I gravitated towards the voices that weren’t trying to tell me the truth — but evoke it.
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Krishnamurti taught me to question everything.
Rumi showed me that love and pain are twins.
Lao Tzu whispered about the flow of things.
Osho and Alan Watts cracked open the paradox.
Sadhguru reminded me to look inward, not up.
Eckhart Tolle, N,Goddard, Ram Das, Demartini,
they each handed me keys.
To the mind. To the body. To presence. To power. I didn’t just listen — I absorbed. I studied, reflected, applied. I lived with their words. Argued with them. Grew through them. They became my teachers. My mentors. Not in the traditional sense — no classrooms, no sermons. But through vibration. Resonance. Alignment.
In the sixteen years of solitude that shaped me, they were there — not to rescue me from pain, but to help me understand it.
To teach me how to alchemise it. To make it part of the art. And now, spirituality isn’t a practice. It’s not a belief. It’s the space I create from.
Music is my Original Muse
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When i hear sound, music, i see art in my mind - so its vital to my creativity. Music has always been there, the background to everything. The soundtrack to my imagination. Even as a kid, it gave normal moments a sense of wonder, like something more was happening beneath the surface. It made things feel beautiful, emotional, like life was more than just what you could see. I felt it deeply. It wasn’t just entertainment — it was energy. It could make me happy, sad, thoughtful, inspired. It still does.
Me and music — we’ve always had this secret collaboration. When I hear it, I see art. Sound turns into colour and images in my mind. The feeling becomes something visual. It’s like it opens a door to another place. And in that place, I get ideas — not just pictures, but feelings, moods, whole atmospheres. It moves something in me.
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I love all music, from all over the world, but there are three main styles that have shaped me. Indian music — both traditional and modern — has given soul to my creativity. It’s rich, full of culture, stories, emotion, and spirituality.
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Then there’s Hip Hop — that’s the spirit in my work. There’s something raw, real, and powerful about it. It comes from truth. It’s personal. It gave me a sense of freedom, expression, and identity. And then there’s popular music — the stuff that just connects people. That’s the heart. It doesn’t try too hard. It’s for everyone. It holds memories, perspective, simplicity.
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Music shaped how I feel, how I see the world, and how I create.
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A world of Culture
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Culture has shaped everything, the way I see, feel, and create. Born in England, raised between worlds, I grew up under grey skies but with a home full of colour. English culture gave me the space to dream, to question, to explore without fear. It taught me humour, resilience, and how to hold myself. It gave structure, history, and a quiet kind of power. I learned how to observe, to listen, and to express without needing to shout. There’s a depth in British restraint a poetic subtlety that helped refine my voice.
At the same time, Indian culture is at the heart of who I am. It’s in the language of my family, the food, the faith, the rituals, everything felt layered with meaning. I was surrounded by spiritual richness and beauty from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. The mystical side always drew me in, the unseen, the energy, the stories that spoke beyond words. There was a sacredness to daily life, a reverence for ancestors, symbols, and time. It gave me a sense that life was part of something far greater, something invisible, but deeply real.
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Between these two cultures, I found my own path. I never saw them as opposites. Instead, the contrast became a source of creativity.
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English society offered freedom and perspective; Indian culture gave depth and soul. Together, they gave me range, a wider lens to view the world through, and a deeper source to draw from. They taught me to live between spaces, to hold paradox without confusion. And from that tension, art was born.
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The mix of cultures in Britain, African, Caribbean, Asian, added to that. It made me realise that identity can be layered and fluid. Every culture added a colour, a rhythm, a scent. And in that space, I found my style, my voice. Culture didn’t just influence my work, it became the work. The layers, the symbols, the dualities, they all show up in my art, not as decoration, but as lived experience.
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ACT : 4
- THE SHARING OF MY ART WITH THE WORLD AND PEOPLE -
TO BE CONTINUED
