The exhibition title can be read as ‘alāg’, meaning separate, apart, parted, or different in Hindi. It can also be read as ‘a lag’, as in a lag in communication or a glitch in some sort of system. The paintings draw freely on Hindu iconography, reimagining well-known motifs and beings, such as Uchchaihshravas, a seven-headed flying horse born of the churning ocean. Sabherwal does not aim to reproduce the traditional but to extend it via new articulations or pronunciations. She comments: ‘I am engaged in processes of archiving and world-building. I wish to resist notions of blind cultural obedience. My works stray quite far from my reference points while still carrying some essence of them. An alternative version can exist alongside an original without one undermining the other. The symbols are statuesque, contained within spaces, constrained, sometimes even stretched. There is tension. Forms silently follow each other to greener fields. Perhaps I am creating an illusion of free will or freedom.’