Dr. Alka Pande is a Consultant, Art Advisor and Curator at the Visual Arts Gallery at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. She is also a Consultant and Curator for the ITPO-NID, Showcase Design, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. Having obtained her Ph.D from the Punjab University with a thesis titled "Ardhanariswara theme in Indian Art", Dr. Pande went on to do her Post–Doctoral in Critical Art Theory from the Goldsmiths College, University of London under the aegis of the Charles Wallace India Trust award. She has many research publications and books to her credit some of the most recent being "From Mustard Fields to Disco Lights: A study of the Folk Music and Performers of Punjab" by Mapin 1999 and "Indian Erotica" by Roli Books 2000. She is a visiting faculty for Aesthetics , College of Art and the School of Convergence , both at New Delhi. She is also a Reader in the Department of Fine Arts, Punjab University, Chandigarh.

On Samavesham:
The paper attempts to explore the concept of Ardhanariswara – the Lord who is half Woman in Indian art, moving beyond the straight and bifurfacted. In the Shaivite tradition the left signifying female and the right male while in Shakta tradition the right female and the left male. The reading of the images moves beyond the syncretic and the androgynous into the realm of 'the becoming'. The transformation or the 'becoming' of the male into female and the female into the male. Questioning the role of perpetuation, the reasoning that delineates and dictates feminity and masculinity as role allocations to the two, and exploring several variations to the theme that are bound to occur and do occur, manifesting in a wide range of emotive, physically palpable entities that make up the present–day definitions of cross-dressing, gender bending, religion bending and transgendering.

As a philosophical construct: Reconciling conflicting 'truths'- combining the truth of polarity with the truth of unity: the Ardhanariswara concept freezes the creation process at the moment of merging / emerging between the uncreated, which is 'no-thing', neither male nor female, and the Created which must have specific attributes alternatively. It desbribes "The Both" – half man plus half woman equals double fertility; neither is reduced but both are enhanced, a representation of complete satisfaction (self-sufficient / needing no other).

The paper describes translation of the statue imagery from the plastic arts to the performing art - the process of 'becoming' serves as a point of reference and departure.