This series of pen and ink drawings are snapshots from my time isolated in the Covid lockdown where gardening and walking my dogs provided a salve for my mental health. The act of growing and harvesting my own fruit and vegetables provided a sense of hope from a chaotic city gripped in fear. The physical acts of disentangling my feet from the watering hose and constantly straightened kinks, or raising my pruning tool in the sky as if to snap the dark grey clouds that occluded my vision, became coping mechanisms against my internal anxieties. Watching the cycles of decay and growth I left the fruit for the birds and squirrels as I became more interested in the ever-decaying body in the pandemic but also in the huge drop in noise and pollution during lockdowns, something I wanted to explore artistically.

On my walks in the Qila Lalkot city forest I often steer off the forest path to avoid the human traffic of joggers. Here I stumble upon hidden graves, stone fragments of Mughal history and Shakespeare on the forest floor along with detritus left by lovers, aerated beverage bottles, condom and savory snack wrappers, all passion spent. I am always looking for signs, runes in the litter of leaves, to give me direction. Sometimes it can be as simple as an old street sign that reads- “Stop, Smile, Go” as if my Dad from up above had himself planted it as a mantra of hope.

The drawings are simple monochromes but I try to capture the chiaroscuro of the dappled light and shade under the canopy of leaves in the forest and garden. Adopting a three-legged Indian pariah dog, Mr Biscuit, which we found wounded in a ditch 16 years ago, taught me to love again and not to be so introspective as I had to care for something more helpless than myself. One is nearer to God in nature than anywhere else on earth.