Meet Navtoj Altaf, the artist crafting her experiences into practice

From child sex abuse to the dispossessed in Russia, her work reflects her curious, questioning personality

One of the nicest people to inhabit India’s art world, Navjot Altaf’s intellectual heft also makes her one of its scariest. Diminutive in real life, the kohl-eyed artist with a penchant for tribal motif bindis is like a cracker perpetually waiting to explode, an inferno of rage against injustices perceived, experienced and acknowledged. There isn’t much she doesn’t know about subversive politics and its impact on the marginalised. Unlike many armchair theorists, Navjot — she prefers to get by with only her first name — has chosen to live an alternate reality that goes beyond mere books and seminar halls.