India, Sept. 7 -- Born in the rural area of the Anantnag valley of Kashmir in India, the artist as a young boy grew up in living in the rural area, there were not too many visitors but for foxes, wolves, bulls and wild cats who fascinated the seventeen odd children living in the rambling home of the joint family. Little Neeraj, then just five or six, made friends with a particular cat who would not let other children come near. His metaphor, in exile from the paradise he was born to, became the animal world he had cherished as a child with a deep interest in harmony and coexistence and a deep interest in Africa, the original homeland of the humans and its relationship with the forests and the animal species. He moved from Jammu to Chandigarh and then to Delhi. It was in country's capital he struggled to survive but never gave up his brush with the animal world of his youth and childhood. Significantly the prestigious Inlaks Grant London came his way as early as 1996 but he declined it and asked for the funds to be given to him to travel in Africa. This proposal was something new to the foundation as the awardees of arts or literature yearned to spend time in London. But seeing his determination they agreed to it. He thus travelled extensively in East Africa, especially to Masaimara and Nairobi in Kenya to study African Art as a first hand experience. Not many artists would reject a stay in London town in the west but this artist who grew up in Anantnag had Africa embedded deeply in his heart and soul since his pre-teens. It all started when his father took him for a holiday to Srinagar when he was just about twelve years young. A part of this excursion to the prized capital city of Kashmir was to visit a cinema and see a film. It was his first visit to the Broadway Cinema and the chosen film was 'Out of Africa', based on a classic novel by Karen Blixin, a Danish baroness who had established a coffee plantation in South Africa and fell in ill-fated love with Denys Hatton, a local big game hunter. The book was written in 1937 in the British colony starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Young Neeraj had a faint interest in the love story but the environment of Africa got deeply embedded in his heart and he hoped that he could visit it someday. Besides he became an avid reader of Hemingway and that influenced him greatly were a short story titled ' The Snows of Kilimanjaro' and his book 'Green Hills of Africa'. The INLAKS foundation hesitated at first but seeing his determination and talent, the funds were diverted to him to stay in Masai Mara for three months and study African art. For the artist it was a dream come true. Africa was to inspire and influence the artist's journey and motifs for all times. It made all the difference to the original emotive elements of his art. He was once again at play with the friends of his youth in Kashmir, in the wide expanse of the animal world. The enchanting landscape of Africa, its flora and fauna and of course its animals have been a part of his art which he has showcased in exhibitions home and abroad. It is indeed apt to say that Neeraj is a painter who dreams animals and that perhaps was the reason for him to choose Africa instead of London to further his art. The eminent Indian artist Anjolie Ela Menon speaks thus about his art " Playfulness, satire and a sensitive inventiveness engage the viewer in an imaginary stratosphere sometimes delineated only by fine brush strokes: Cats threaten to metamorphose into tigers and in the distance, sometimes beckon the viewer to enter a fantasy world that is not necessarily as pretty as it seems like the Metatheatre of the Absurd." Sure enough animals play a significant role in his art and reach out to the viewer to tell the story of displacement in such a compelling manner. The animals of Masai Mara entered the creative world of the artist's oeuvre and reached out to the admirers of art with rare sensitivity. The souvenir he brought home after three months of stay in the homeland of animals was a book by Rober Vavra: 'A Tent With a View: An Intimate African Experience'. "This book furthered my bond with Africa and I found the landscape of Africa more enchanting than that of Kashmir and I made friends with the felines of the species whom I rendered with emotion", says the artist. Indeed the cheetahs, leopards, tigers, lions and cats were to be born again with sensitivity to the very emotive brush the artist wields. The love for the creatures is not just a fad in fashion but a deep concern for the bond that binds humans, animals and ecology as well as the shared dependence of the animals and the humans on one another. And it is this magnificent obsession that defines the creative world of the artist's world. It is this concern for harmony, in the larger sense of the word which was recognised by the highlands he was born to. He is the recent recipient of the 'State ICON Award' by the Harmony Foundation in India for his exemplary contribution to the field of art, especially in exploring human-animal relationship since centuries, whether its beauty, mythology, wildlife, metaphoric images of animals, magical power, symbols of togetherness in Egyptian art that this painter has been exploring with passion the past 25 years since his first visit to Kenya. He seals this bond by establishing a studio of his own in Nairobi which will magnify his passion further. It has been a long journey from Kashmir to Kenya but a fruitful one with hope negating loss. It befits to hope that Neeraj will be to African wildlife what Paul Gaugin is to women of the Tahiti Islands....