The last of the Progressives, Krishen Khanna told stories of a newly independent India

He used figures from Hindu and Christian myths to reflect the turmoil of the 70s: the midnight arrests, censorship of the press; the repression and hostility of state machinery

Artist Krishen Khanna has a new project. He takes out his phone to show me the beautiful sculpture being created in England based on his designs. It’s inspired by a particular famous incident in the Ramayana, which he insists has been portrayed badly by painters and not at all by sculptors.

The sculpture transcends time and space to simultaneously evoke Persian, Welsh and Indian mythology. The fact that I see it on the day before Dussehra isn’t lost on me, nor is the fact that though we celebrate Ram’s defeat of Ravana, a lot of creatures fought him. It was an army of animals, who supposedly had no agency or power, who won the war for Ram.

Khanna points to the painting he’s working on in his drawing room. It’s a black and white rendition of a bandwallah on a cycle. “My son says I should colour it but it’s meant to be the bandwallah going home at night. There’s no need for colour, is there?”