‘Our son was our rockstar. This is how we remember him’

In May 2022, our lives changed forever when we lost him.

He fought a difficult battle with Hepatitis C. He was 26.

As an artist and sculptor myself, I tried to make sense of this loss by building a statue of our son. I have worked on several themed Durga puja pandals in Kolkata, but this was the most challenging project I had ever undertaken.

I built a frame, but I was unable to finish it. It just wouldn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.

My wife, Sthita, refused to let the idea fade away. So finally I reached out to an old acquaintance, the artist Subimal Das in Kolkata, who is well-known for his hyper-realistic silicone sculptures.

The likeness he made for us, in 2023, was so perfectly what we wanted that we decided to create a small museum around it, to celebrate the life of our very own rockstar.

During the pandemic, Swarnab – we used to call him Tatan – had encouraged me to turn the ground floor of our house into a crafts hub, so that I could showcase my work. His memory museum is now on the top floor of our house. It has music CDs and his favourite childhood toys, his clothes, art and personal belongings.

For Sthita and me, it is a quiet place, a safe space for recollection. We often find ourselves wandering into the room on empty evenings and listening to his songs.

We don’t always need to talk about him when we are there. He brings us a sense of comfort and peace even from very, very far away.

(As told to Anesha George)