Born in 1944 in Lucknow, a town near the river of Ganges in the royal family, he began working for Satyajit Ray in Calcutta as an Art Director. When he started feeling the love for the seventh art awakening inside him for the first time, he made several interesting low-budget documentaries mainly focusing on Sufism. He also appeared on TV as an actor in a serial Jaan-e-Alaam. He draws from the traditional Sufi poetry and music such a deep inspiration, that using one single medium of artistic expression simply no longer suffices him. This is why this master of fine details also designs clothes, he exhibited his paintings in Calcutta, Bombay and Paris, but for the time being he is concentrating all his energies to his opera and the Khusro festival. His poems of visuals are the epitome of inner grace, essence of nostalgia, the fragrance of the present, and the dream of future. Nevertheless, accompanied by Girish Kasaravalli, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Anand Pathwardan, he represents a part of the generation of Indian cineastes, who have critical comments on the social order and differences.

filmography (selection):
1978 Gaman (The Passing)
1981 Umrao Jaan
1983 Sunehre Sapne (Golden Dreams, kratki/short),
1986 Anjuman (Garden)