An IAS Officer With A Difference

From his artistic innovations to renovate Kolkata Tramways to debut solo art exhibition titled “Love and Longing” IAS officer, Rajanvir Singh Kapur is handling his administrative affairs and passion simultaneously. Kapur is currently Special Secretary, Sundarbans Affairs Department of Government of West Bengal and is the officer who brought a lot of artistic innovations in the Kolkata tramways from holding moving library to a restaurant during his previous charge as Managing Director of West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC). A self-taught artist, Rajan’s art depicts women empowerment, and also signifies the emotional states of love and longing created during the pandemic where many loved ones were separated by distance and many losing their loved ones. Besides paintings, Kapur also used Phulkari, a traditional embroidery in Punjab region, as an expression for his art work. He has taken the melange of love through various elements like jealousy, envy, seduction, taboo etc through paintings depicting each emotion. The launch of the art exhibition saw various artists and well-known personalities of the city. IAS officer Roshni Sen, Director Arindam Sil, Actor turned MLA Soham Chakraborty, Actor Pallavi Chatterjee, were amongst the many who attended the launch. Eminent painter Jogen Chowdhury observed that it is interesting to see how an administrator perceived art as he’s intrinsically involved in the daily lives of people owing to his work. Kapur believes that at present his arts are not for sale, but would if he needed to do it for a cause.