Monisha Gulati-Gagneja & Prashant Gagneja
About Us
We’re Monisha and Prashant (“Manu”) Gagneja—partners in life, in art, and in a shared sense of curiosity about what it means to be fully present. We met in dental school 34 years ago, became pediatric dentists, and have now been married for over 30 years. Dentistry was our first profession, but creativity has always been our undercurrent.
BeHereAsYouAre.com grew naturally from the things that have shaped us most: painting, photography, meditation, and the long practice of showing up for each other and the people we care for.
Monisha
Monisha is a pediatric dentist, a self-taught painter, and a photographer whose work revolves around love, unity, and the layered beauty of just being alive. Oils are her primary medium, though watercolors and ink step in when she wants a softer or more contemplative tone. Her paintings often center on Hindu divine couples—Radha and Krishna, Shiva and Parvati—figures she approaches less as mythic icons and more as symbols of emotional truth: devotion, balance, effort, and partnership.
Her style leans impressionistic, favoring color and gesture over exactness. Through these divine relationships, she reflects on the human ones we live every day, hoping her art creates moments of calm and sparks someone’s own creative instinct.
Manu
Manu (Prashant) has been drawn to the camera since childhood. Before his career in pediatric dentistry, he briefly worked as a fashion model—an unexpected chapter that trained his eye for posture, presence, and the unspoken way people inhabit a frame. Over time his path expanded into teaching mindfulness meditation, a practice that infuses every part of his photographic style. His work is patient, observant, and rooted in the small invitation echoed in this site’s name: Be here, as you are.
Primarily a portrait photographer, he also wanders into macro, astro, and travel photography, using each to explore scale, detail, and the quiet stories found in a moment when someone or something is simply given space.
Together
Together, our work comes from the same impulse: to notice, to feel, and to honor the present moment. One of us paints emotional landscapes and expressions of love, spritiuality and life, the other photographs the world as it reveals itself—but both are invitations to slow down, look closer, and reconnect with the simple reality of being here as you are.