Mr. P. Dass M. A.

Bikash Bhattacharjee was a chronicler of middle-class Bengali society and its beloved Kolkata, their hopes, aspirations, superstitions, and even corruption. In this oil on canvas, the artist depicts an intimidating personality, perhaps a charlatan, holding a magnifying glass with which he claims to read the future. Bhattacharjee employed his technique of photo-realism to good effect in depicting this clairvoyant who seems to have a hold on his followers with his powers—rather questionable—to predict their future, attested to by a nebulous rashi chakra (astrology chart wheel) in the background.