Biography

The Egg:

I grew up watching my grandmother (mother’s mother) making elaborate embroidery design with colorful threads on every household item. That was a rare experience of living with art. She was extremely talented but unaware about her talent. Neither I had been recognized my own creative nature.

The Caterpillar:

As a kid I was very sensitive that is what I heard about from my family members. I spent an important part of life at our village house and my grandmother’s house, which was also in a small village. So I grew up with crop fields, shades of green trees, cool breeze, sights and sounds of nature. I used to live in our village house at Asanagar with my family. My father used to work and stay at Kolkata and come home at weekends. My grandfather wanted all his progeny at the least to become graduate. When my grandfather died at my 2 years my father was the only earning member of a large joint family. While father was far away mother had to manage a huge household. Like many other things I didn’t have any idea about drawing or color pencils, crayons, nothing at all.

Eating Leaves & Flowers Constantly:

My introduction with color or painting was many years later. Moving to Salt Lake city made a huge change in my life. For the first time at the age of six years I started going to a nursery school. It was a total chaos.I was just a starter learning alphabets, when all my classmates were learning to read and write essay. So it became hard for me to understand any of my lessons. Only interest of going to this school was the drawing class, which excited me. Teachers were very glad about my performance in this field. I got much response from my classmates too and I started drawing pictures with pencil, pen and crayon whatever was available. After one year I entered Bidhannagar Government High School at Salt Lake. This school was good for me. My friends eventually became great support system for me. And my art practice and experiments started to grow really fast. I used to make landscapes and portraits of my friends and teachers in my copies. I got quite an attention and appreciation from my friends and teachers. At the age of 9 my father took me to an art teacher nearby my house, where my younger brother and I used to go once a week. The happy time started. After a few years one day my drawing teacher suggested my father to think about me to make a career on art. But father wanted me to be a Doctor or an Engineer. So when I was about to pursue my 1st board exam of 10th grade my happy moments gone away. It made me realize that painting is the only thing I can do and I want to do with heart and soul. This is the only thing what brings light and joy to my life. But it was hard to convince my parents, a fight started between my father’s wish and my inner hunger. A real difficult time started with lot of conflicts and ups and downs. My mother always gave me moral support. She used to say no matter which field you want to go to you have to be the best among all. My Physics teacher Rana Sir told me about Art College and started to encourage me to go.

Pupa:

Life was not already smooth and more over I experienced most bitter things of my life in that time which almost threw me out of life. But I overcame everything and started to focus on what I want to do, and said to myself that I will do that, no one can stop me doing it. Finally I was able to crack the admission test and then an interview. I entered to the Government College of Art and Craft to study Applied Art.

For the first two years it was like “Guru-Shishya” tradition. Teachers were very strict but they knew every part of us. It was a wonderful experience to have training from teachers like Ram Lal Dhar and Manoj Sarkar. Their encouragement, presence, discipline and unique style of teaching made my skills stronger. They taught me that “success doesn’t have any short cut”. I learnt to see things from a different perspective. I often heard that I should have selected Fine Arts instead of applied art. But applied art added an extra flavor to my works. It vigorously showed me the possibility of modern art and helped me to mix it with our traditional painting style.

Butterfly:

During graduation I didn’t let anything else to come in front of my work, I had my priority of the quest for art. Every day I was trying to make myself better. I wanted to be the best. Meanwhile I took a job after college hour in an e-card company as a visualizer. It was a new experience and showed me a different way of creation. Finally I finished my Bachelors at 2006 with more than enough marks to apply for Masters Degree. Studying Master degree was even more interesting. This time we were allowed to do all kinds of experimentation in our work. There was no limit about subjects and teachers were always ready to help us with their precious suggestions. My subject for dissertation paper was quite interesting – “A comparison between concept art and conceptual art”. This was a very new contemporary subject, having a practical experience was necessary. So I took a job this time as a concept and background artist in an animation studio. Projects were different and challenging. After college I used to go to studio and worked late, it was a great fun learning new things. But doing a job and earning a paycheck at the end of the month doesn’t give me satisfaction. My hunger was for more. I scored highest Marks in Masters among six departments in the year 2009. That was a satisfaction but nothing makes me totally satisfied, my desire is always for more, to put my life together and give it a meaning. During my small life I realized that creative art is the only thing that gives me peace, keeps me alive. It’s like breathing oxygen or having food for life or listening to good music, which stimulate our nerves. It gives colorful wings to my imaginations so I can fly thousands and thousands of miles.

Eating Leaves & Flowers Constantly:

Kinder Garden

My introduction with color or painting was many years after that when we moved to Salt Lake city, Kolkata . Moving to a city like this made a huge change in my life. First thing I privileged was going to school . I was six years old and two years delayed for school .finally my parents managed to put me in a nursery school. That time kids generally goes to three years Kinder Garden school before 1st grade. I missed two year so when I entered to school it was totally chaos for me. I was just starter to learning words when all my class mates already learn to read a write essay. so it became so hard for me to understand any of my study. I used to copy whatever the teacher was writing on the blackboard without knowing their meaning. I can still remember an incident very clearly. That they the class teacher (I really don’t remember her name now) was writing an essay about “National Animal of India”. she wrote “Tiger is our national animal” and I wrote ” T i g e r i s o u r n a t i o n a l a n i m a l” and copied the whole essay in same order. when I came back to school mother was wondering about it. by then almost everyday she used to go to one of my class mates hose nearby that school and copy everything so she can help me to do my homework. I didn’t have any friend there may be other children were not so interested to make friend ship with a silly village girl, and I was a bit shy. so only interest of going school was drawing class, only thing that exits me. and teachers were very glad about my performance in this field. I got so much response from my class mates too and that really encouraged me to draw and I started drawing pictures with pencil, pen, crayons whatever was available. after one year I luckily passed out from that school and entered in Bidhannagar Govt High school at Salt Lake. I was not dumb but entering 1st grade was just like a whole sky fall on my head. but eventually I started to understand my studies. but from the past experience of my prep school I developed a funny way to remember study material. what I used to do is I remember every page like a picture, like a visual expression, that makes me remember which page contain which picture or content! i still have little bit of this habit with me, because I always have a problem with proper nouns.