Untitled

With this drawing, Bikash Bhattacharjee gives in to the most common indulgence among artists—to create one’s own likeness. And by not looking into the eye of the viewer, he confirms what one has always suspected of him—that he never shared an easy camaraderie with the camera, looking away from the lens as he did in most of his photographs. For an artist who made portraits of many luminaries—including, posthumously, Indira Gandhi’s after her assassination, or of Mother Teresa with an erased face—this self-portrait was a worthy indulgence.