The Practice

Even before technique, before galleries and collectors, there is the practice itself: the quiet return to the studio, day after day.

For Yograj Verma, something within that practice keeps him returning. He calls it energy.

His process begins with contemplation. He spends a long time with an idea before touching paper. Sketches emerge, are set aside, revisited, and refined. He returns to them every day: “Ek din nahi, do din nahi — main usko roz niharta hoon,” — until an inner voice tells him it’s ready.

Only then does the sketch move to ink. Research follows. He cross-references his work with critics and advisors, absorbs their perspectives, wrestles with them, and gradually arrives at a form that feels distinctly his.

He paints when his mind and hand feel completely aligned. His vibrant colour palettes emerge from visions during meditation. Before choosing his colours, he meditates until it feels like the choice isn't his to make anymore.

“God ko dhoondne nahi ja sakte. Aapko sab kuch arpan karna hai. Tab wo jaake kahan kis waqt aapko kaam mein aayega, tab aur aap usko kis roop mein pehchaan paoge wo God hota hai.”

“You cannot go looking for God. You have to surrender everything you do to the process. Then, at some point, in some form, you recognise that presence through your work. That, for me, is God.”

When the interviewer asks, “Toh energy hai?” Yograj confirms simply: “Energy hai.”

For him, that energy becomes part of the act of making. It moves through the brush and the colour when the mind is quiet enough to let it.

The practice asks for two things above all: involvement and dhairya, patience.

“Jaldbaazi nahi honi chahiye.” The work takes its own time. If you work with a disturbed mind, the painting reflects it. If you work with an aligned mind, that too finds its way into the painting.

“Agar aap achhe mann se karoge toh uska reflection aapke kaam ke saamne dikhai dega.”

His integrity runs deep. He places spiritual honesty and peace of mind at the heart of his practice. Money can bring material comforts, he says, while health, true knowledge, and peace of mind come from elsewhere.

Knowledge, he says, is where thought begins. “Knowledge se hi aapko soch aati hai. Aur soch agar acchi hain toh tabhi aapka dimaag aur haath accha chalta hain.”

Reading before drawing. Knowing before making. For Yograj, the hand follows the mind, and the mind follows what it has been fed.

The Unscheduled Darshan — Nathdwara

After waiting 12 to 15 years for the “right time,” Yograj travelled to Nathdwara with his wife. They arrived after the temple doors had closed to the public. A head priest spotted him from inside, called him over, and escorted them in for a private, face-to-face viewing, samaksh darshan, before the deity.

There, Yograj closely observed Shrinathji’s chin diamond and its history: the story of Aurangzeb offering the jewel in surrender after his attempts to destroy the temple had failed.

The Mahakal Palanquin — Ujjain

While attending the Mahakal Yatra among millions, Yograj stood in a distant corner, with little expectation of darshan. Then the palanquin of Shiva changed its route and passed directly beside him, bringing him unexpectedly close. The moment stayed with him and became the central inspiration for his current Mahakal series.

The paintings that emerge carry thought alongside colour and form. Yograj believes that when someone is drawn to his work, they respond to something within it: its thought, its energy, its way of seeing. The work becomes a “communication bridge,” where the viewer’s inner world meets the energy the artist brings to the work through meditation.

When a work enters someone’s home, Yograj believes it carries a spiritual energy that works quietly over time, gradually healing the environment around it. He compares this to the collective vibration felt during Durga Puja in Bengal or Ganesh Chaturthi: a shared energy that stays with you, here held within a painting and working quietly over time.