A Line That Will Never Be Drawn Again: Culturist Sundeep Bhutoria remembers Jogen Chowdhury (1939-2026)
Jogen Chowdhury, our beloved Jogen-da, has left us at 87 after a long year of illness. With him, an era of Indian art draws to a close, and Kolkata’s cultural heart falls a little quieter. Personally, I have lost my friend and our guide of the organisation “The Bengal”. It was Soumitra Chatterjee who first introduced us. The friendship clicked instantly, and soon Jogen-da became a familiar presence at my Russell Street home in Kolkata, where our adda sessions stretched long past midnight, with art, poetry and music flowing in equal measure. For over two decades, we worked shoulder to shoulder. As President of The Bengal, succeeding Nabaneeta Dev Sen, he brought a quiet dignity to everything we did, from the Sunil Gangopadhyay Memorial Award to Soumitra Chatterjee’s exhibition ‘Forms Within’ at ICCR. He was a cornerstone of our Prabha Khaitan Foundation platforms, and graciously endorsed my book, Calcuttascape. The world knew his haunting cross-hatched figures,...
