“Bhavatvi”, [Media: patinas and engraving on brass] “Atvi” meaning forest, “Bhavsagar”, ocean of worldly life. Here Gada’s work departs from the literal, and becomes Modernistic,where form fragments and breaks down in the struggle to convey meaning. Like Woolf, words, in his case materials, are inadequate to convey the frenzy of thoughts of an internal dialogue of an artist in deep depression and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Panels of pure brass are corroded to look like aqueous paths in the monsoon and the artist passionately gouges and etches into the surface to produce extraordinarily delicate leaves of GajarGhas (Parthenium hysterophorus), an invasive plant known colloquially as “famine weed”. These have the appearance of floating diaphanously on the surface of the water, capturing the chiaroscuro of light shining through the forest canopy. The piece was inspired by William Blake’s “A Vision of the Last Judgement”where souls float in three dimensions between Heaven and Hell. There is a darker interpretation as the work contains hidden depths reflecting the artists fear of drowning when he is unable to see the bed of a sea or river. Oceans and forests become metaphors in his work for unknowing due to their complexity and unfathomable vastness that hint at the infinite.The artist encounters impenetrable walls of Parthenium, an invasive Mexican plant that stifles biodiversity, blocks out the light and drains valuable water resources with its deep roots and physically blocks his path ahead. The trapezoid shape of the pieces are inspired by the collimated beam of light from a torch,often seen in cartoons creating a penumbra at the edges of the work implying the unknown, through which the artist seeks to shed light, as evidenced by his feet at the edge of the installations holding the light source. Lost on Delhi’s Ridge the artist recalls the mythic folk tales of his childhood, of Hansel and Gretel in the wood and a Prince slashing down a thorny hedge to awake Sleeping Beauty.The tall wall of partheniums is in fact partially permeable and for the artist representsmental blockages. Like the wild gardens Gada prefers, these natural walls that create an obstacle trail, another labyrinth for the artist to negotiate. The artist contemplates whether he should push on through the hedge with no clue as to which direction he is going, other than forward. Or should he try to retrace his steps along paths that now all look the same hoping that crumbs of a sweet cake he baked from a past life, or a thread from Ariadne, will act as his guardian angel and give him back his bearings? This is close to the artists faith of Jainism's and the concept of jatismaran,past life regression.