Ranbir Kaleka was born in 1953 in Patiala, Punjab He initially gained a diploma in painting from the College of Art, Punjab University In 1985 he went on to do his Masters in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London on a Charles Wallace Scholarship and returned to India in 1998 He wants his art to be treated like literature and be read like a passage or chapter Even though his work has a high imaginative quality he refuses to be classified amongst the Surrealists or the Dada artists He eventually moved away from painting and started focusing on multimedia work His love and interest in cinema led him to explore video art He uses painting and video to create a spectral cinematic interface Some of his popular works in this media are ‘Man Threading a Needle’ and ‘Man with a cockerel’ His video work ‘Crossings’ is a part of the permanent collection of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi He was honoured with the National award by the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi in the year 1979 He was also a part of an important group exhibition in the year 1988 titled Seventeen Indian Painters celebrating 25 years of Gallery Chemould His work was exhibited along with other prominent Indian artists like Raza, Tyeb Mehta, Jogen Chowdhury and many more The artist lives and works in New Delhi