Intimacies
The project is based on a Bengali joint family in Kolkata, it began in 1998 and spanned more than a decade. It was more of an effort to explore relationships and intimacies that the members enjoyed among themselves than any perceived social documentary work on the joint family system. The artist,who is very close to the family, made the project personal and autobiographical. As an insider-outsider for four years, and then, another seven years, the artist was a quotidian visitor to their 90-year-old house which had initially housed a primary school. To chronicle the multiple folds and layers of the everyday lives of the ten people belonging to four generations living under the same roof, he took a long journey with his camera.
The family revolved around Muni (Shibani), the matriarch of the Chatterjees. Her son (Amiyo), daughter-in-law (Bani), two unmarried, working daughters (Manju and Leena), two grandsons (Apurba and Amal), a granddaughter (Padmini), a granddaughter-in-law (Mithu), a charming great-granddaughter (Teesta) and Manju, a college lecturer, who was the backbone of the family and was the virtual architect of the project. The project culminated in the artist’s first book Intimacies, and is dedicated to Manju’s memory.