An ongoing exhibition by Neekoee Foundation and 079 Stories brings renewed attention to one of Bengal’s most compelling theatrical legacies through a photographic series by Naveen Kishore. Titled Green Room of the Goddess: The Chapal Bhaduri Story, the show presents a portfolio of 17 photographs that document the life and performance of Chapal Bhaduri, once celebrated as Chapal Rani, the leading female impersonator of Bengal’s Jatra theatre.
Bhaduri’s career traces a poignant arc in the history of performance traditions. As one of the last iconic male actors to perform female roles in Jatra, he embodied femininity both on and off stage, at a time when women were excluded from theatrical performance. However, as social norms shifted and women began to take on female roles, Bhaduri found himself displaced from the stage. In response, he reinvented himself as a performer of Sitala, the goddess associated with disease and healing and enacting sacred narratives in itinerant performances that blurred the lines between ritual, theatre, and survival.
Kishore’s photographs capture this transformation with striking intimacy. Moving between backstage preparations and moments of performance, the images dwell in the liminal “green room” space where identity is constructed, dissolved, and reassembled. The series offers not only a visual archive of a vanishing theatrical form but also a meditation on gender, devotion, and resilience.
The exhibition opened on 6 June 2026 and was accompanied by the launch of Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal by Sandip Roy, alongside a screening of the documentary Performing the Goddess. Together, these elements situate Bhaduri’s life within broader cultural and historical frameworks, foregrounding the intersections of performance, marginality, and memory.
Naveen Kishore (b. 1953), known for his multidisciplinary practice spanning theatre lighting, photography, filmmaking, and publishing through Seagull Books, has long engaged with traditions of female impersonation across Indian performance cultures. His Performing the Goddess project, from which this exhibition draws, has been exhibited internationally, including at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and is held in major collections such as the Smithsonian and the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Green Room of the Goddess remains open to the public until 12 June 2026, offering a rare and layered encounter with a performer whose life stands at the intersection of art, gender, and cultural transition.
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