FRANCIS NEWTON SOUZA (1924 - 2002)

"As a child I was fascinated by the grandeur of the Church and by the stories of tortured saints my grandmother used to tell me. As far as I can recollect, strange fancies always occupied my mind. I seldom had companions. My mind was rapt in fantasy. On retrospection, today, it seems funny, almost ludicrous. But it created the artist in me. I did not care for football and hockey and cricket, although I didn't mind playing with girls, skipping and other games, secret or sportive. But the dream world: the phantasmagorias, the hallucinations, angels in paradise, the sun, moon and stars were lovingly personified, vividly imagined. I would converse for hours with ghosts and apparitions, saints, fairies and goblins.
(Souza, F.N., Words & Lines, London, 1959, pp. 9-10)