Early Life and Childhood Ramkinkar Baij was born on 25 May 1906 in Bankura district of West Bengal, India. He came from a poor family and spent most of his childhood in a simple rural environment. From a very young…
Imagine holding the original, handwritten Constitution of India. As you turn its heavy pages, you don’t just see laws and rules; you see breathtakingly beautiful borders, golden designs, and paintings of Indian history—from the Indus Valley Civilization to Lord Rama,…
If you walk into any major art gallery in India today, you will see a huge variety of styles. But a little over a hundred years ago, Indian art was going through a major identity crisis. While British rulers were…
When we close our eyes and pray to Goddess Saraswati, we see a beautiful woman in a white sari, sitting peacefully by the water, playing the Veena. When we think of Goddess Lakshmi, we imagine her standing gracefully on a…
If Calcutta’s Government College of Art taught India how to remember its past, and Shantiniketan taught India how to connect with nature, then Mumbai’s Sir J. J. School of Art taught India how to be modern, bold, and fearless. Located…
Imagine an art college that has no closed classrooms, no strict British uniforms, and no bells ringing to change periods. Instead, the students sit under the shade of massive mango trees. The sweet smell of wet earth is in the…
If you walk down Jawaharlal Nehru Road in Kolkata today, right next to the grand white building of the Indian Museum, you will see a beautiful, old red-brick building. It looks quiet from the outside, but if these walls could…