Bappa Bhowmick is no entomologist; but as the title of his exhibition, Poka, at Charubasona Sunayani Art Gallery implies, it is all about creepy-crawlies. Bhowmick wants to send out the message that we should think twice before swatting insects because repulsive though they are, they do us a world of good. However, his light-and-airy, serio-comic drawings of these critters equipped with vampirish gnashers that often make life intolerable for human beings make the case for their annihilation stronger.

Bhowmick presents a parade of such bugs and he gives each of them a character of its own. There are deadly mosquitoes, cockroaches, bed bugs, caterpillars, maggots, flies, centipedes, and chrysalises of various kinds. All of them are equally repulsive. However, it is not easy to conjecture from their contorted facial expressions whether they are angry or hysterical with mirth. A good number of these pests are drawn on either white or bottle green sheets of paper with black or white lines. Bhowmick depicts them in all their fascinatingly ghoulish details. But for their fearsome dentition, they could be fairies with gauzy wings. Their forms are so delicately delineated with the lightest of touches — stippled with infinite care and with limbs worthy of art nouveau tendrils — and caught in fey poses that could make ballerinas go green with envy.

Some insects are elegantly painted with daubs of silky turquoise and pinks. One of these is curiously painted on a vinyl extended play recording of a Mohammed Rafi song. Two of the largest paintings are apocalyptic visions of the invasion of giant bugs that tower Godzilla-like above skyscrapers (picture). The sky is a bright red with multistoried buildings encircling the horizon. Above it are giant bugs floating like monstrous blimps. The stuff of nightmares indeed.