Childhood and Other Influences
During her tender years, Priyanka was given exposure to the Indian philosophy as well as literatures of the world. Her small library was full of Greek mythological stories and Russian folk Tales which bore the seeds of imagination into her mind.. Carl Sagan’s ‘ Cosmos’ and Leo Tolstoy’s children books had strongly influenced her to think deeply about the origin life and philosophical questions on the Universe. Later she was fascinated by the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky which moved her much and she became sensitive towards the spirituality and its expressions. She has been very open about acknowledging the difference between religion and spirituality and condemned any form of religion based society. During her MFA thesis,2017, she brought all these aspects together in the most profound way and wrote thesis on Art, Science and Consciousness, for which she was awarded with research grant from HRD Minister of India . Her teacher and mentor, A. Ramachandran taught her the importance of finding her own path to express herself in the individualistic most way . According to her fellow students, Priyanka could easily flow between Andrei Tarkovsky, Carl Sagan and still remain rooted into her Indian philosophical expressions!