Gallery Maskara is pleased to announce the opening of The Joy of Seeing by Bimal Maskara that captures everyday life on the streets of Bombay and Calcutta during the 1970s. This is the first time these works will be exhibited in a gallery setting.
Between 1975 and 1980, Maskara quietly documented the streets of Bombay and Calcutta, capturing everyday life with clarity, humour, and grace. His images—never staged, never sentimental—demonstrate a keen awareness of the rhythms of urban India.
While working on assignments and mentored by Raghubir Singh, Maskara developed a unique photographic voice when the medium was still gaining artistic recognition in India. This exhibition features a selection of photographs from an archive unseen for nearly 45 years. They offer not nostalgia, but a return to the subtle poetry of everyday life — to a time when the city revealed itself, frame by frame, to a young man who knew how to look.