Must have been Love - Parameshwar Raju's Pictorial Calligraphy at Park Hyatt

The exhibition has 35 works on display from his series of Radha and Krishna, Shiva and Parvati, Adam and Eve, Rama and Sita, Surya & Benign Perch, in Parameshwar's lucid, pictorial calligraphic style. Mythologies and narratives play a pivotal role in Parameshwar's works. Not just as a point of reference but as an engagement to excavate forms from within. Moving away from the confines of basic calligraphy, Parameshwar combines his sense of liberation with calligraphy, delivering an idea embedded in the visual to narrate complex episodes in his simple minimalistic images. Parameshwar’s work imbibes a sense of presence that enable his viewers to be familiar with events and happenings from the past.

His Childhood memories; of studying at the St Vincent Convent, where he visited the church often are vivid. He remembers taking part in the Nativity processions during Christmas. He recalls those endless discourses on religion between his grandfather who worshiped Shiva and the priest of the church.

These discussions would take place often in his home. These recollections perhaps enable him to interpret devotion in the form of love for nature, the universe, the country, it's tradition and mythologies.
Parameshwar Raju’s works reflect the notion of present-ism and etemal-ism in its ordering of realities in a cerebral manner. As a presentist, his works convey the thought that at a certain time certain things exist and others do not. This is the only reality one can deal with. And in an alignment to an etemist thought he believes that time is an aspect of reality and equals to the three spatial dimensions - past, present and future and because of this, all things that are once experienced or brought to conscious knowledge is just as real as things in the present are.

He refers to the study of traditional texts that explain that the universe goes through repeated cycles of creation, destruction and rebirth, with each cycle lasting 4,320,000 years. And almost certainly this has nurtured a strong passion for history, traditional Indian customs, rituals and folklore and their preservation in his work. Parameshwar has travelled extensively within the country and overseas, his works have been exhibited in the Beijing Biennale, the Museum of Sacred Art in Brussels have housed a major collection of his works.

In the present exhibition the images in calligraphy are not words but visual depictions, in his personalized style of thin, thick and thin progression of strokes. The narrative is defined as retelling of something that happened. In this exhibition, Parameshwar conjures the essence of eternal love; life is endowed with, and it's manifestations in devotion, between lovers, within a family and as reflected in nature's abundance. "Divine love manifests as the "beautiful", "playful" and "delightful states within the divinity. This corresponds to the three stages of Devotion as; Sambandha - relationship, Abhidheya - devotional service and Prayojana - pure love as discussed in Bhakti Vedanta..." "...The Bhakti Sutra of Narada emphatically states and conclusively exults toward the end of its text "of the tripartite formation of truth" (God, Devotee and their unified form is the cosmic love that flows as benevolence in the Universe).

"The heart to the beloved in Bhakti is truly the most precious thing." - moving between worlds - Graham M. Schweig. Living Theology of Krishna Bhakti; Essential Teachings of AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Edited by Tamal Krishna Goswami.