This painting is of a man from Rajasthan, a bull and a dharm shala named Ram dham. The man is wearing a thick ring in his ear and a many folded turban, each and every folds are very distinctly and clearly visible. Some locks of hair have escaped from the turban. The artist has painted the locks, eyebrows and ribbon mustache with exceptional refined and delicate lines. His eyebrow has turned to grey. He has a sharp nose, thinner lips and buck teeth. The portion below his eye is little puffed and has little fish tail wrinkles. He has a prominent chin with a cliff. The man has such a sensitive expression that it looks as if it is a portrait. There is a sense of serenity in his expression.
This painting reflects artist’s view of life and death and its relation with each other. It is like two faces of the same coin, without one the other cannot exist. The man is playing a musical instrument kartal and with full dedication singing hymn of Shri Ram.
The bull that is resting peacefully is a combination of lord Shiva and Nandi. The hump of the bull is representing Shiva and the bull is Nandi the vehicle of Shiva. This is symbolic to express Nandi always carrying the lord Shiva the destroyer on its back. The artist has also expressed the feeling that the presence of bull itself is making it a holy place to visit. The bull and the horn of the bull both are in white and black. The head of the bull is white with white tilak and rest of the bull is black. The white is representing life and the black is representing death. They are always together; with life comes death. The checker in the floor also represents the same feeling.
The residing place is called Ram dham; dham means a place to live. So Ram dham means the place where Ram lives. The naam very delicately suggests the presence of Shri Ram. It hints that whoever is staying there is living with Shri Ram. The dharm shala is symbolic. While searching for Sita scouring the south of India, Rama with his troop had halted in many places. In one such place they had found the Shiva-Linga given to Ravana by Shiva as his representation by Shiva himself. Ravana could not carry the Shiva-Linga to his Kingdom Lanka as was his wish.
This painting is a representation of that sequence of a resting place with symbolic Shiva. There is a picturesque landscape outside the dharm shala. The sky is orange and far away there is a hill with shades of blue and few huts with red roof. Little nearer to the dharmshala is a tree full of green leaves. Just outside the verandah the bull is sitting peacefully.