Mirroring the art of resistance

Nilima Sheikh's scrolls are, at once gigantic in their context and scale, but familiar in their connect and urgency

For those of us who grew up listening to stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata told around the fires of chilly winter evenings in North India, the experience managed to combine the epic with the intimate. Here were grand stories from times long ago recreated for the pleasure of a small group of spellbound kids, rendering it immediate and personal. Nilima Sheikh’s scrolls are like that too, at once gigantic in their context and scale, but familiar in their connect and urgency. Interestingly, one such large work — Terrain: Carrying Across, Leaving Behind— currently on view at New Delhi’s