Subba Ghosh blew up the marginal proletarian subjects into larger than life characters – Ramesh, Roshni, Ismail and Komal – on the outer walls of the caretakers quarter. Academically painted these portraits belonging to the social-realist genre were offset by a post-modern excavation in the surrounding ground that yielded labor implements.

My Museum Has No Walls

Fading photographs,
Frayed yellow letters.
Broken pipes,
Worn out gloves.
Little shards
Of a broken gem
Old records,
Cracked and chipped.
Keys to locks
That have long been lost. Pieces of wire,
fused bulbs
And letters never posted
Still warm
To my mothers touch
Secure
Like my father’s cradle
My cupboard
Has no doors
Crumbling walls,
Lost stories,
Memories
Like migrating birds.
Graven images,
Of forbidden love, Quivering names,
Tentative desires.
In the dying light
The hasty gaze
And faltering touch
My museum
Has no walls October, 2000