Shishur Sevay

One day last week I saw a notice in the paper about a photo exhibit at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata.  I’ve been there a couple of times for functions.  The exhibit was closing in three days.  That meant either I go that afternoon or miss the show altogether, and I wanted to see it.  But I also thought the kids might like it, and they hadn’t been there.  So, last minute, I talked to the teacher and instead of class we went off to the Academy of Fine Arts.

Driving along on the the streets, well, stuck in traffic actually, we saw a mother putting a sheet of plastic down on the pavement and putting her young child down and then sitting.  The girls all saw, and I asked what they thought.  One of them said, shyly, "My mother did that.  I lived this way."  I asked how the girls felt, and they all agreed, "Sad."

Between the curbside and the entrance were many posters of plays, concerts, and other art shows.  The teacher and the girls read the placards, and talked about what we might go to in the future.    For the teacher, this was a first also.

The photo exhibit did not hold much interest but we wandered into the other galleries.  We saw different forms of art, and met several of the artists.  With each artist, I asked them to explain in Bengali what they thought about when they did their art, how it happened.

I never know how the pictures will appear in the blog, in terms of placement, but I don’t want to put them in separate albums — I prefer the one click read.  So, you can see from the pictures, the variety of art.  One picture, with a girl looking sad caught their attention.  One girl said, "crying, crying" and the others came over.  I asked the artist to tell them why he painted this picture, what he was thinking.  He explained to them in Bengali that he was thinking about her being poor, and her thinking about being poor… they connected, art in the mind, art on canvas.   

The girls quickly also learned that if they pointed out a "favorite picture" I would take a picture of them in front of it.  There were lots of "favorites."

No trip is complete without ice cream, but even after the ice cream they read all the signs, posters, as we waited for Bijoy to bring the car.