However, where Arya speaks to voices from the past, Hasan finds the monument talking of contemporary things. In her five-year long conversation with the monument, she has seen it jostling with the rash of new buildings, mostly boutiques and restaurant. But Hasan says the monument holds its own against both encroachment and corrosion. And the visual vignettes of that conversation are exhibited at the India International Centre Annexe and can also be seen at the artist's studio inShahpur Jat.

The contemporaneity of the monument is in its being an embodiment of an aesthetic geometry valid for all time. While its domes vie with the great bowl of the sky, its various planes reflect the order of the state that built it. The simple graves and cubicles remind one that the basic constituent of all this grandeur is human beings of very human dimensions. This is an important truth that Hasan brings out in her work. It is one that should guide us in all times of instability, including the present.

--Suneet Chopra