A guide to Kolkata (Calcutta), West Bengal and Bengali culture.

Saptashilpi at Chitrakut


Sunrise breathes life into multihued blossoms. The silvery moon fills tired souls with myriad dreams. The rainbow brings smile on every rain washed face. Life is beautiful, whispers Tarun Banerjees's landscapes.

The Embracing Nature - Anjan Sengupta
Brown, blue or green, the hills are lovely, dark and deep. A cool Northern breeze drapes us with meditative calm. Ganga winds away from the madding crowd. Upright trees touch the sky. Though leafless, they stand tall - taller than a highrise. If there's heaven on earth, it's here, amidst virgin Nature, implies Anjan Sengupta.

Agony - Sukumar Das
She lights a lamp, and softness engulf us. He plays a flute, and love throbs in our veins. Life is music, sings Murari Mohan Basu.
Halt ! cries Sukumar Das. If there's love, there's hatred too. If there dreams, there's nightmare too. If Life is true, so is Death. So, a python bares its fangs behind leaves. A hyena pierces the tranquill midnight's sleep. Dragons, alligators, snipers stalk humans at every shadowy turn. Life is vicious, he boldly paints.

Love Story - Biswajit Mondal
Biswajit Mondal swings the balance. Here, his clown may be frustrated in love. But there, dreams haven't deserted his care-worn eyes. Hope, then, flows as he plies the strings of heart.

Samir Saha
Samir Saha restores equilibrium. Man and woman, they look into each other's eyes. Day and night, they personify equipoise. Sorrow and joy, they walk hand in hand. He etches with ink, with gold he paints.
Surge ahead ! - Robin Dutta urges, through robust bulls and electric blues. And with that, the spectrum is complete. Life, you realize, has gone a full circle. The raga has played every note of the Sargam.
Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange …..Spectrum, true to its name, is a harmony of every colour, content and style. For more than 25 years, they have existed in synchrony. Creative in nature, they create through Nature. They are individual in the pictorial language they speek, but universal in the emotions they evoke.
Thus, Anjan reflects upon the multifarious moods of Nature - or is it Woman? For Prakriti - the Sanskrit word that's a synonym for both - personifies Creation in every sense of the term. Thus, Robin Dutt's Durga reconciles contradictions. reconciles contradictions. One morning she combats the terrors that beset man's world. Another twilight evening she plaits the hair of another woman.

She - Murari Mohan Basu
Thus Murari Mohan paints droll stories of love with images from his surroundings. Thus, magical moments from Samir's subconscious assume new life in his creations. Thus, Tarun's saplings and branches and leaves that sprout forth distill the desire to reach out, feel, experience the joys and woes of man and his world.
Thus, Sukumar telescopes the ruthless vermins that prod man to feast upon man. Thus, Biswajit absorbs the jester's mask in order to set aside agonizing thoughts and ring in a vibrant tomorrow.
Sujit Sengupta
Courtesy : Ratnottama Sengupta