if ever an artist has derived so much joy out of paper, it is Chinthala Jagdish. Inspired by the folk traditions of Andhra and Orissa and the wooden toys of Kondapalli, he documents life with the clarity of a child’s eye and the inventiveness of a magician. Jagdish has a way with paper, sculpting it into the most whimsical forms. A global citizen today, straddling three continents, he lives and works in India, USA and the UK, holding workshops at various universities and sharing the changing tableau of his creations.

There is an episode in the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, in which two giants, Hidimbi and Gatotgacha, descend upon a small Indian village. These frightful cannibals are hungry and need a meal. They single out a family with three children, of whom the middle child eventually volunteers with the reluctant, though tacit approval of his parents, to be the victim. ‘I was that child’, says Jagdish with wry amusement.