Art worth investing in reflects the spirit of the time. Today much that is contemporary and creative is under attack and young artists are responding to this oppressive state of affairs with a firm creative resistance.

This I saw in the work of two Balbir Singh Katt?s students, a husband and wife team of sculptors, Mirigendra Pratap Singh and his wife Vandana Singh, now working at Varanasi.

The oppressive climate created at the Banaras Hindu university by the Sangh Parivar after the disappearance of the leading figure in the fine arts faculty, Balbir Singh Katt, has created not only a sense of fear but also of resisting it.

This is obvious from Vandana Singh?s sculpture, ?Between Two Mill-Stones,? based on the verses of Kabir: ?Seeing millstones crushing flour, Kabir burst into tears / No one survives as whole between these stones it appears.? This work, priced at Rs 50,000 expresses how the creative community in a major centre of culture feels today in Varanasi.

Vandana has done a series of sculptures on ?Between two mill stones? while her husband, Mrigendra has done a series of sculptures which he exhibited at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai. In these, he has used the symbols of despair and decay like leaking pipes, old window-frames, stone markers and barriers to create abstract spaces that charge the environment, with the human presence.

Show your document: An oil-on-canvas by Jash PS

In some of these works, like ?Shifted? we see two blocks of stone that seem to have slid down from one another, with grass growing through them, reflecting the ultimate victory of hope and creativity over the forces of decay and despair. What is more, the market has responded to his expression, with works selling at between Rs 40,000 and Rs 80,000 each.

What is interesting is that this form of almost ?natural? resistance is something particular to the long tradition of dissent in Varanasi, reminding one of the works of the late Anil Karanjai, whose paintings have the same feel as the sculpture of Mrigendra.

A number of his works of the resistance of trees are available still at the Delhi gallery in Hauz Khas and with his wife, Juliet Reynolds.

This resistance is not restricted to Varanasi alone, as I saw from an exhibition organised by the Kerala-born artist Roy Thomas at a new gallery that has opened in New Delhi, the Gallery Epiques, run by a young gallerist, Sidharth Bhalla.

A number of works are notable. There is Binoy Verghese?s portrayal of the Vaudevillian world of celebrities and VIPs who appear to be misfits. There is Roy Thomas?s superimposition of the Korean farmer who committed suicide at Cancun and images of models reminding one that everything can become an object of consumerism.

But the image of the gate of Dachau concentration camp by Josh PS, with that ultimate fraud of Hitler?s Nazis on the victims in the form of the slogan: Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes You Free) giving those destined for extermination the idea that they would be freed if they collaborated with the authorities reminds one that certain images even if they enter the world of consumerism cannot be co-opted.

It is good to be reminded of this quality of fascism in times like ours. The works are all priced at around Rs 70,000 each.

A similar series is on view at the Arpana Gallery, where the art collector, Mahesh Chandra has curated and sponsored an exhibition of the works of the gifted sculptor MJ Enas which remind one of the values one has lost, while the painter Sanjeev Sinha?s al Qaeda images remind one of the insecurity that has become part of our lives.

Similar works have been produced by senior artists like Gogi Saroj Pal, Latika Katt and Ved Nayar. Indian artists are confronting the times they live in, but the important thing is that they are using their skill in painting and sculpture to communicate their message.

They have not taken the relatively easy way out with mechanical imagery as in the West today.

This is the reason why our contemporary art makes for better investment than that of the Western art with its inflated prices. Our art is both cheaper and better.