Born in a small Punjabi town of Dhuri in 1941, Manjit Bawa wasn't exactly encouraged to be an artist. "My mother would try to dissuade me, saying art was not a means of livelihood. But my spiritual leanings dispelled my fears. I had no qualms. I believed God would provide me with food and I would earn the rest," he says.

It was Bawa's older brothers who backed him up. He studied fine arts at the School of Art, New Delhi between 1958 and 1963, where his professors included Somnath Hore, Rakesh Mehra, Dhanaraj Bhagat and B.C. Sanyal. "But I gained an identity under Abani Sen. Sen would ask me to do 50 sketches every day, only to reject most of them. As a result I inculcated the habit of working continuously. He...