Rain. The large painting has swathes of black, framed by grey; a bolt of cobalt and a sly showing of a gentle yellow as a growing orange stretches over greens. I am completely mesmerised. Memories come rushing in; of monsoons in childhood, the light through the pelting rain, the scent and lushness of the greenery at once nostalgic intermingles with a heightened sense of emotion. That’s when it hits me. He is a genius — an artist of place and memory.

Howard Hodgkin, by far the most distinguished British painter alive, is having for the first time a show of his paintings in India, an effort that has come about with the patient perseverance of his friend Maharukh Tarapor, herself a distinguished museum director, and a coterie of close Indian friends marshalling the energies of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, the Tate, Gagosian gallery, the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation and the British Council.

‘Howard Hodgkin: Paintings 1984-2015 A Tribute’ is a show that consists of two large paintings lent by the Tate and 12 hand-painted gouache on intaglio impressed on Indian Khadi paper work from 1990-91, which are part of a larger collection of 30 and six small new works done in Mumbai over last winter.

As you traverse the gallery, stop and look at them, you are struck by the boldness of colour. They become pieces that need a different manner of looking; mediating almost with one in an empty white room. The thought of them being placed at the centre of a Japanese tea ceremony altar — an aesthetic appreciation needing time to be internalised. Abstraction is a challenge for the viewer but Hodgkin, gives his paintings names — Black Rainbow, Goanese, Marine Drive, Dusk, Waves, Sunshine... Thus speak Hodgkin’s works. The titles are a suggestive hook for the viewer’s imagined narrative.

In her interview with him, Sharmista Ray says that human encounters, by his own admission, have engaged him most deeply, as have “unfortunate love stories, failed marriages and awkward dinner parties”. Freed of the anxiety of description, Hodgkin’s paintings have become, in his words, “relaxed and straightforward and simple”. Simplicity should not be mistaken for ingenuousness, however. Each painting can take years; the pain and pleasure of painting are still vital for the painter, who realises he doesn’t have much time left. “Strangely, the older I get,” he says, “the easier I find it to produce an emotional punch to my soul.”

He has also made a mural in the British Council building in New Delhi designed by Charles Correa. Black stone and white marble in undulating curves evoke the shadows, as if cast by a tree. In time he was sent to represent the U.K. in the first Delhi Trienalle; “a great mish-mash where most pictures were rubbish” but for three paintings that he discovered by the late Bhupen Khakhar. He also curated six Indian artists for a show at the Tate following his immersion into Indian contemporary art.

A very large painting on wood called ‘Come into the garden, Maud’ is a series of coloured daubs but there is a very clear feel of a garden and a gentle rustle of a breeze among the flowers. As I leave, the gallery, the image of him sitting sideways in front of this painting stays, as if he has called the viewer to come and share his garden. A universe of essentialised colour and line; of light and truth.