February

Our decision to develop a personal artistic style based on the Indian miniature tradition didn't go down well with our art tutors. They failed to recognise how innovative our interpretation of the genre was, and we were criticised for not complying with the principle of originality upon which the western modern art world claims to be built.

So when it came to our finals examinations we made sure to back up our position with carefully researched dissertations which demonstrated how the development of western contemporary art was significantly influenced by non-European art forms from India, Persia, Japan, Africa and elsewhere, and how this influence underpinned the creative innovations attributed to artists (such as Matisse, Picasso, Mucha and Gaugin) who are commonly regarded as pioneers of western modern art. To drive the point home and to remind our tutors of this fact we also started to created work such as the one featured on this page (titled 'Art Nouveau Lady in Pink' ), inspired by some of these artists.

Our determination not to compromise our art and to argue our case academically, cost us our degree when the external examiner refused to award our dissertations a mark even though he'd described them as "undoubtedly scholarly" and "PhD level". This pulled our overall degree mark down. We were told that he particularly hadn't liked what we'd written about the influence of Indian art on western artists and that when asked by other examiners to justify his position, had retorted that we would be happy with whatever mark we were given as we would "only be going off and getting married anyway".

When we initially complained to the University about how we'd been treated by the external examiner, they just closed ranks. Devastated and sickened by the whole experience, we wanted nothing more to do with University life and were ready to give up on what had been our intention at that time to pursue a career in academia. But true to the spirit of resilience and defiance in the face of adversity and injustice which is part of the Punjabi and Sikh DNA, our father urged us not to let the University off the hook. With difficultly we eventually forced the University to grant us a formal appeal.

The process took several years but with our father supporting us all the way we eventually won our case.