I am indebted to Nandalal Bose for my development as an artist and a painter. I believe he was the greatest intellectual ever to be born in India. His contribution to philosophy, art and particular painting has never been surpassed by any other artist."

Ask painter and sculptor A. Ramchandran when was the first time he felt the urge to pick up the brush and the easel, and what did he paint, and he will tell you an apocryphal story. It goes, in his own words, "Once upon a time there lived a lion with a pepper and salt mane, in a private jungle of his own. Since he was a recluse, other animals had serious doubts about his I.Q. level. So they sent a hare with a questionnaire to him. The hare presented it to the lion and said, "We are making a survey to find out how intelligent animals are." "Interesting," the lion said, "What are the questions?" "The first question," the hare answered is "Even before you saw yourself as a painter, what was it that you had an urge to draw?" The lion answered modestly, "The urge to draw started from the urge to scratch, which is one the most pleasurable sensations in life."

Born in 1935, Ramchandran graduated with Malyalam Literature from Kerala University before going on to study art at the famous Visva Bharati University at Santiniketan. He has held several solo shows in New Delhi and Mumbai.

Ramchandran, like his spiritual and art guru Bose, makes a strong case for Indian aesthetics and for the use of classical Indian images to articulate an ideological position. The painter converted to using archetypal Indian imagery only after years of painting in the modernist vein

He says that he has been inspired by and extensively used Kerala murals, Nathdwara paintings and Ajanata murals in his works. "There is a certain primacy of line and an decorative element or alankarik in Indian paintings and you can see their use in my works " he contends.

Ramachandran believes that his monumental painting 'Yayati' was one of the landmarks in his growth as an artist, because it "let me incorporate elements of classical proportions and postures. I adopted the narrative mode of wall painting for this." In most of his works, the decorative element doesn't stand out; it is intrinsic, so much so, that he uses decoration of clothes and jewellery as part of the overall design.

Yet, Ramchandran says, he cateogrises himself as a modern Indian painter. "I don use religious images which are such a huge part of Indian art. In fact, I introduce my own iconic images, like any other modernist would do. Only, my figures are more in line with Indian imagery which you find in old caves and temples."

His chosen medium of painting is oil on canvas, and bronze sculptures. A Ramchandran lives and works out of New Delhi and Kochi, his hometown, to which he goes back for inspiration.