Making paintings in Japan was a great challenge. The rendering has to be true to several distinct cross-cultural realities. One is that he is Artist Mumbiram who makes great mural masterpieces such as “The Forest Women Visiting Krishna and the Gopis”. He is also Mumbiram who makes exquisite charcoal portraits of dark beautiful rag-pickers of India. Then again he is in Japan that has its own tradition of paintings that have the tidiness and grace of ink-and-brush calligraphy. The woman that is posing for him is beloved Gokula who is madly in love with India and with whom he shares love of his beloved Krishna.

Mumbiram treats every single painting as a unique creation. He does not let his art get into a stereotyped style. Mumbiram’s hands-on approach has created a great composition and a great mood. The patterns on Gokula’s saree and on the Indian printed handloom sheet are created with carved potatoes as printing blocks. Mumbiram has chosen Jagannath idol as representing Krishna. That is significant because it has an equivalent of sorts in the Daruma idol of Japan. (One buys the Daruma doll at the local temple. You paint one eye of the doll and make a wish. When Daruma fulfills the wish you paint the other eye.) Mumbiram has included the blue porcelain bird of fantasy from Gokula’s home that had fascinated him. It is the equivalent of the peacock that is so prominent in Krishna’s retinue.