The Radcliffe Line was the border drawn to demarcate India and Pakistan in 1947.

This is a line that still bleeds. This selected body of work has emerged from my travelogues and

encounters with Bangladeshi nationals who are refugees and immigrants in Italy and Switzerland. As I come from Bengal, these linguistic encounters opened a window for dialogue.

The drain on a country’s resources due to two hundred years of colonial exploitation, the gigantic financial and psychological stress on the population due to displacement from partition, the political instabilities and the impact of climate change on a riverine country have resulted in many Bangladeshis to flee their homeland and cross many borders to arrive in Europe.

I had a chance to learn about their trajectories and the stories of their migration to Europe for a better life which for most has remained a utopia. Many have to leave their families in Bangladesh and work hard in low-paid jobs to send money back home. They have been stranded in Italy for more than seven to eight years in the “sans-papier” – i.e. without legal papers – situation, not being able to leave the country of exile until they are regularised and in the quasi impossible position of finding a legal job.

I have, through my scratched technique drawings,tried to inscribe the wounds of partition and human movement through written words and drawings.