He began as an engineer, but was drawn into the world of art in 1974, when he stumbled onto a book detailing the history of Western art. He became familiar with the movements of Impressionism, Expressionism, and so forth, and this new knowledge nourished his interest in painting.

Excited by the prospect of studying art, Parthan went to Goa and enrolled in a five-year course in the fine arts. Parthan's course, running from 1978-1983, overlapped with the final influx of Westerners coming to Goa in search of enlightenment.

Through one of his Western acquaintances, Parthan came across Sartre's "Age of Reason," a book that he describes as a major influence. Also affecting his work at the time was Goa's "soft drug culture". This, too, helped Parthan explore new ways of experiencing the world.

Parthan began to study the Indian mystical arts, exploring tantra, ritual arts, and Indian mythology. Simultaneously, Western art continued to exert an influence. Parthan names Larry Rivers, Miro, and the Cubist painters as important models.

In the early 1980s, Parthan decided to quit painting. He enrolled in a course on comparative mythology at Bombay University, and began working as a writer and illustrator. He returned to painting in the early 1990s, when he began to explore the imagery of mandalas and Tibetan tangas. These traditional subjects were balanced by his reading in post-modern theorists.

In 1995, Parthan began to study computers, learning hardware engineering, building his own machine, and creating programs. Parthan is especially interested in the influence of technology on religious beliefs, the implications of genetic engineering, and the possibilities of post-humanism (i.e. the development of symbiotic relations between men and machines).

He lives & works in Mumbai.