Watch the stalker!

Paritosh's observations of daily life parody the less-seen.

Paritosh Sen was not present at the launch of Purnima Dhawan's Gallery 302 in New Delhi, but had he been, he might have been amused by the conversation.

"Is that a painting?" an enlightened visitor asked. "Looks like an illustration," his friend answered. "Oh him," dismissed a third, "he is an illustrator."

Sen, not present in the flesh, might still have managed a wolfish grin "" he was present, after all, in more ways than one. For starters, two of his works were part of the exhibition of contemporary Bengal art.

Then, one of them (the one not on sale; the other work sold the first evening itself) was a self-portrait of the wise and funny artist, somewhat wry with humour, as if he was chuckling about the conversation he was not there present to hear. And finally, the evening marked the launch of his most recent book, A Tree in My Village (Popular Prakashan, Rs 1,500).

If Sen could not be present in Delhi, it's because he's 78 years old and frail, and perhaps more insistent about painting than partying. Born in Dhaka in 1918, and educated at the Government College of Art in Chennai, Sen went on to study "" and live "" in Paris.

That influence, a Bengali childhood and Chennai's then kitsch art were perhaps to be influences that would remain with him for the rest of his life. In a sense, the visitors at the gallery were right "" Sen's style of work is "illustrative".

There is an element of parody, and commentary, in much of his canvases. His sense of humour keeps surfacing, only to be kept in check by the jibes only a cartoonist can provide.

But there is also the voyeur in him "" a strong streak of the stalker, almost, as he keeps neighbourhood vigil, watching someone shave, or dress, bathe children or feed them, pump iron or cook in the kitchen.

From the washes of the Bengal School to the Cubist and Expressionist movements of Europe, from developing an independent style (and nurturing the Calcutta Group movement as its founder, in 1943) to portraits, Sen's observant style has matured, changed in its rhythm but without ever losing its robustness.

Gallerist Purnima Dhawan, an old admirer of his work, is particularly charmed by "his charcoal and line movements" and says he alone among his peers "has kept the Bengal school alive with his intensity".

Fewer collectors might know that Sen's recent book is not his first. Sen started writing when he was 61 years old, in 1979, and has since written a number of fables and tales on the countryside in Bengali. The recent book, in English, contains a full page serigraph and has a large number of pen and ink sketches.

It's fortunate that Sen has remained immune to the price blitkreig launched by many Indian galleries "He's one of few artists who hasn't gone crazy about his pricing," says Dhawan. "He wants to be accessible to a lot of people."

Perhaps it's the ironical humour; maybe it's his choice of subjects; or just maybe the visitors at the gallery were right after all "" and Sen is more illustrator than painter, after all.