I had painted this in seventh standard, oil on canvas. I couldn't quite match him. Please bare with me for this!
Bikash Bhatacharjee (21 June 1940 – 18 December 2006) was an Indian painter from
Kolkata in West Bengal. Through his paintings, he depicted the life of the average middle-class Bengali – their aspirations, superstitions, hypocrisy and corruption, and even the violence that is endemic to Kolkata. He worked in oils, acrylics, water-colours,
conté and collage. In 2003, he was awarded the highest award of
Lalit Kala Akademi, India's National Academy of Arts, the
Lalit Kala Akademi Fellowship.
This is my first portrait, acrylic on canvas, that I had done when I was in seventh standard, as a part of my curriculum in my drawing school, back there in Agartala, my home town.
September 30, my sleep is interrupted by my phone ringing. It's Didi. "Wake up! It's Mahalaya!" she exclaims. My sleep is all gone in minutes. I quickly take to Youtube and play the 'Mahalaya' recital.
As "Ashhiner Sharodoprate..." plays through my earphones, my mind slowly drifts to the river banks of Gumti, back there in Tripura, where the 'kash phool' must be swaying in the breeze by now, the mystic 'dhak' beats, the camphor smell in the air, the 'pujo-pujo gondho', the Aroma of the arriaval of Maa, that only a Bengali can perceive.
Being stuck in a far-off land, in the south of the India, where there's no visible signs of Autumn, no 'Mahalaya', no Durga Pujo, I closed my eyes in reminiscence. On this day, we would wake up before the break of dawn and Mahalaya would be played in the radio in all houses, the reverberating voice of Birendra Kishhore Bhadra, leaving us all mesmerized for hours. As the divine aura of his narration soothed my soul, I looked around, my roommates were all fast asleep, with a lump in my throat, Tear drops rolled down my cheeks in silence.
Here's a drawing, done the day before, with a Mehendi cone, the funny reason being, I didn't have the right colors and brushes to do it! My friend had brought it for me from the fair. Being the girl that I am, devoid of all girly interests of wearing Mehendi on my palms, I shamelessly used it where it wasn't meant to be. Apologies to her.
