New Delhi, July 25 - A month-long exhibition of paintings by eminent Cuban novelist, dramatist and artist Severo Sarduy brought to the capital by the Spanish embassy Saturday has ruffled the Cuban government, which alleges that the exhibition is 'launching a veiled attack on Cuba through its catalogue'.

Cuban Ambassador to India Miguel Angel Ramirez Ramos protested the 'contents in the catalogue which touched upon of the humiliation writer-painter Sarduy suffered under the totalitarian regime in Cuba'.

'I am very unhappy with a section of the content in the catalogue with references to the humiliation that Sarduy suffered under the totalitarian regime in Cuba. It is a veiled attack on Cuba,' Ramos said at a press conference at the Instituto Cervantes where the exhibition 'El Oriente de Severo Sarduy' was inaugurated.

'The catalogue says Sarduy suffered humiliation at the hands of the totalitarian Cuban government...which is why he spent most of his life outside Cuba,' Ramos translated the catalogue as saying.

Sarduy, who was born in Camaguey in Cuba in 1937, spent half of his early life in Cuba, several decades in Paris and travelled extensively in India, Bhutan, Nepal and China, where he was deeply influenced by Taoism and Buddhism.