First, it is interesting to see which artists figure in both auctions. From our Indian artists, Jamini Roy with 19 works on sale (seven at Bonhams and 12 at Sotheby's) did well enough with four works being bought in at Sotheby's and all sold at Bonhams. It is interesting that of the works that sold at Sotheby's, three sold at above 7,000 pounds,while at Bonhams, one work went for 6,500 pounds, and three between 3,500 and 4,000 pounds. From all accounts, Jamini Roy is a popular collector's item.

The next on the list is F N Souza, who had 16 works on sale (eight at Bonhams and eight at Sotheby's, with only four works being bought in or remaining unsold). Souza's `Black Nude' fetched 6,500 pounds at Sotheby's while his Portrait of Husain sold at 7,000 pounds, clearly establishing the artist among the bestsellers.

How does one understand these figures in the face of Ganesh Pyne selling at only 16,000 pounds or Husain remaining unsold at 7,500 pounds? The prices of these two artists, by no means inflated by international standards, may seem too high to some, who would prefer to buy ``equivalent'' works at a lesser price.

What are the equivalences? Jamini Roy represents the most finished blend of French cylindrical drawing and the pure line and colour of Bengal pit: the expression of a trained hand in the voice of the peasantry that threw Britishcolonialism out. In fact, we have stories of the artist selling works to soldiers and factory workers at Re 1 each. These efforts reflect a radical break from the conceptions of art of the colonial world which were limited to the elite. In Souza's success we have a much sharper support to radical art. A former leftist, he showed the elite in all its ugliness, just as Francis Bacon did in England. His `Death of a Pope', reminds one of a dismemberment and not a funeral. Indeed, even in these sales, the works of his that topped the list were a portrait of a fellow progressive, M F Husain, and a Black Nude, very popular subject to challenge the concept of the white/blonde and blue-eyed aesthetic of medieval Europe of the Holy Roman Empire.

It would be interesting then to look at the one artist to represent the blend of both these trends, coming from the peasantry and radicalising our art. Ram Kinkar Baij. Not surprisingly, eight of his works were in both auctions, three at Bonhams and five at Sotheby's, withonly one work at each remaining unsold. The price his work sells at is still far below the worth of his art, but he did reach a high of 2,500 pounds.

These are not the only swallows in the summer of our analysis. A radical drawing of George Keyt portraying the cold war between Russia and NATO, as that between Bhima and Jarasindh went for 2,800 pounds, while a possible Radha and Krishna misinterpreted as `Two Women' went for 6,500 pounds, while a Bengal famine work of Zainul Abedin, the doyen of Bengal radical artists, touched 7,000 pounds. It is clear, even in the case of Chughtai, who would be pale stuff before a Zainul Abedin or a Souza, to paint the human figure in an Islamic state becoming increasingly fundamentalist is in effect radical. But what extends his market and his price to 35,000 pounds is the common ground shared by the `radicals' of Pakistan and the `conservatives' of India that home equally to his work.