Soumitra Das-Frontline

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A British-era building is reflected on the glass facade of a contemporary construction in Dalhousie Square, Kolkata, in 2011.

Death of an edifice

The Bengal Bonded Warehouse building in Kolkata, celebrated in an Abanindranath painting, is soon going to be replaced by a brand new building overloo

Oct 05, 2025

Prasanta Sahu goes back to his roots in Chaughari, a remote village in Odisha, for inspiration.

Magic of the mundane

Prasanta Sahu’s art belongs to workaday objects and the toiling masses, whose labour brings forth things of truth and beauty.

Jun 24, 2025

Members of the Jewish-Indian community share greetings at the inauguration of the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue in Mumbai in 2019.

From flesh and memory: Miss Samuel: A Jewish Indian saga reveals the slow disappearance of India’s Jewish minority

A moving, often heart-breaking, novel about the Bene Israeli community, which is on the verge of being wiped out of India.

Mar 28, 2025

The “Kanthar Ghar” project in Santiniketan.

Young artists drive debut Bengal Biennale’s democratic vision

Festival fills the gap for a large-scale art and culture event in eastern India, displaying a potential to revive West Bengal’s stagnant art scene.

Jan 12, 2025

The Great Banyan tree, spread over 1.5 hectares with more than 2,800 prop roots, is one of the biggest attractions of the Indian botanical garden in Howrah, West Bengal.

Paradise in Peril: India’s great banyan garden fights for survival

The Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, a living heritage site, is in desperate need of funds to sustain itself.

Nov 10, 2024

K.G. Subramanyan in Hyderabad in 2014.

K.G. Subramanyan (1924-2016): Artist, activist, provocateur, teacher

An exhibition celebrating Subramanyan’s centenary asks us to critically engage with his legacy to reaffirm his place among India’s greatest artists.

May 16, 2024

Pawan Dhall shows a few objects from the archive in his south Kolkata flat.

Chronicling the early years of LGBTQIA+ movement in India

How Pawan Dhall, queer rights activist, researcher, and writer, has single-handedly created a remarkable archive of the early years of the movement.

Apr 04, 2024

Always nattily turned out, often in custom-made suits, a silk scarf marked Goswamy’s personal style.

Researcher with a keen eye for detail, B.N. Goswamy was a rarity among art writers

He could convey profound ideas in prose that approached poetry in its lyricism and simplicity.

Nov 30, 2023

Historian Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

‘East India Company did not anticipate popularity of railways’: Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

The British historian discusses Empire Building, her latest book on the construction of British India till the 20th century.

Nov 16, 2023

The artist at work in his Kolkata residence.

‘Art must emerge from life and its tribulations’: Ganesh Haloi

Sharp as ever at 86, Haloi urges artists to draw inspiration from Indian nature painting over Western realism.

Aug 10, 2023

The restored garden house in Konnagar, West Bengal. Abanindranath spent many happy days of his childhood in this one-storey house with a sprawling garden overlooking the Hooghly river.

Abanindranath Tagore: Garden house of the homing artist restored

But the sprawling mansion where the Bengali author-artist breathed his last lies in utter neglect.

Feb 23, 2023

Barry O’Brien: “I think there is a good balance in the The Anglo-Indians: A Portrait of a Community between what is ‘serious’ and what is ‘fun.’”

Barry O’Brien: A buffet treat on Anglo-Indians

Interview with the quizmaster, educationist, motivational speaker, and author.

Jan 12, 2023

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