Look at this assortment of polychromasia that Sen feasts on! From India’s wholesale market he ferrets out inexpensive but interestingly hued items just to enjoy their colour mixing complexity. Identifiable here are tiny bottles of lip balm in numerous colours, a doll’s headgear, the doll’s redden mattress and bolsters, and trinkets like bangles, hairclips and ribbons.
When India was partitioned 1947 to create Pakistan, a new country for Muslims, about 20 million people of Bengal and Punjab were displaced and brutally victimized. Sen’s wealthy, literate family had huge landed property in erstwhile East Bengal, the present Bangladesh, which was carved out to be East Pakistan for Muslims. So for being Hindus Sen’s family was overnight evicted from their home. Without taking any possessions, they fled for their lives amidst people warring over religion, and so became squatted refugees in West Bengal.
