Short story by Harjot Banga: ‘How dirty were the hands that designed those temples? Hands that counted the opium profits in the warehouses of Calcutta, honeyed and lethal with dust? Hands that fixed the cables that drained Burmese rice while the Hooghly teemed with corpses.’

A multi-city exhibition of the work of Flemish marine artist François Baltazard Solvyns showcased comprehensive visual records of the people of Bengal, displaying the deep roots of caste and patriarchy in everyday life. By Sravasti Datta

Deities like Shitala represent a specific premodern response to disease. Paromita Patranobish explores what Bengal’s pox goddess could teach us about social ethics in Anthropocene times.

In her latest work, Aruna Chakravarti revisits the early 20th century ‘mejo kumar’ story, now allowing all its characters—particularly its females—to speak in their own voices. By Saurabh Sharma

At Bengaluru’s gallery g, an exhibition of India’s artistic century journey from 1850 to 1950 presents a complex synthesis, resulting from the cross-pollination of old and new, Indian and European, traditional and innovative. By Bindu Gopal Rao