The Bengal Biennale makes its debut in Santiniketan

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Toto! I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kolkata anymore. In the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, after a tornado picks them up and dumps them in Oz, Dorothy famously tells her little terrier Toto that she thinks they are no longer in the cornfields of Kansas.

“We must be over the rainbow," she exclaims in wonderment, standing amidst nodding flowers, and peeping Munchkins. For Dorothy in 1939, the end of the rainbow led to a land where bluebirds flew and troubles melted like lemon drops. In 2024, it might lead to the first ever Bengal Biennale.

Santiniketan isn’t quite Oz but it’s close enough—just with brick-red dust instead of the yellow brick road. Its presiding deity Rabindranath Tagore, with his flowing robes and long beard, could pass for a venerable wizard. And the main mode of transportation is vehicles one rarely sees in metropolitan Kolkata—totos, three-wheeler electric rickshaws, the larger country cousin to Kolkata’s “autos".

Toto-hopping through high art might sound a little odd but it makes perfect sense on Santiniketan’s bumpy roads and narrow lanes. These toto drivers also double as guides. “I’ve hired a toto for the day," says a wise friend.

I tag along happily. The biennale kicked off on 29 November with a few speeches, a bit of tree planting but no Rabindra Sangeet at all. Whatever the reason, to me the omission of this hallowed staple felt like a quiet signal that a biennale in Santiniketan can salute the great masters without being petrified by reverence for them.

Old hallowed Santiniketan is very much a part of the biennale. There are exhibits at Vishwa Bharati’s famous Kala Bhavana with its exquisite murals by K.G. Subramanyan.