Between Word and Image: Reading Ram Kumar

This lecture examines the literary and artistic oeuvre of Ram Kumar, one of India’s foremost modernist voices, through an interdisciplinary lens that foregrounds his fiction and correspondence. Focusing primarily on his novels and letters, the presentation traces themes of existential solitude, urban alienation, and moral ambiguity that permeate his prose, revealing a deeply introspective engagement with post-independence India. His letters—especially those displaced at MAP—offer rare insights into his philosophical temperament and creative process. These textual reflections are then juxtaposed with his abstract paintings, not as separate expressions but as silent extensions of the same emotional and intellectual terrain.

By connecting word and image, the lecture proposes a unified reading of Ram Kumar’s work as a sustained meditation on silence, memory, and the search for meaning.

This programme is conjunction with Shape of a Thought: Letters from Ram Kumar