His paintings have a quaint calmness. Some are intangible as a dream others are clearly retold realities. “The paintings are a stern emptying of the soul. I do not like to reproduce my surroundings as they are”, he explicates. The old master also adds that art evolves with the artist.

After studying at the J J School of Applied Art in 1948 and unhappy with the lack of patronage in art, he inured himself to two score years in the field of advertising. During that time he worked with JWT as a visualiser and later served as creative director at HTA, Mumbai and Chennai. “It was also a time”, he relates tongue-in-cheek, “when we made pretty bubbles for our customers’ products.”

“Even though”, he confesses, “my paintings take their own shape, I believe in experiments and accidents in art”.

As he runs through the warp and woof of his life, he retells of the Artists’ Centre, of Ara, Gaitonde, Husain. His history is the history of modern art in India.

Once inspired by Jimi Hendrix during his era of fads, the octogenarian says, “Painting as an art is discovering oneself.” From Body, Mind and Spirit , his last collection, he declares he has now started out fresh. He has now come up with Agnihotram, a collection inspired by Yoga, Quantum Physics, Da Vinci and Lord Shiva. Now being at a spiritual stage of self-discovery, Damodar says, “ My paintings are an offering to the gods.”

His story is not disparate from the story of Paul Gauguin, his hero. He says, “My creativity could not be stifled by neglect.” Now on the advisory panel of Smart and U Visual Arts Foundation, his paintings are in the collection of people like Karen Anand, Ravi Vora and Nagaratna Atmaram. Karen Anand recently held an exhibition of his paintings

Asked about his opinion over art as an investment, he says, “The prices of paintings only go up with the passing of each day and it also helps sustain a piece of art.” He spends the next ten minutes analysing the behaviour of art collectors. But when it comes to his paintings, the insight ends as he leaves them to the interpretation of each individual, letting each individual decipher his ‘portentous allegories’ in their own desired way.