Patna’s key cultural centre, the Bihar Museum, was palpably abuzz with excitement when we arrived. Within moments, we realised that those queuing up patiently to enter the premises weren’t just intending to view the priceless art and artefacts of the museum, but were eager to catch the solo show of artist Subodh Gupta. Titled Subodh Gupta: The Way Home, the show, which was on view from 9th of November 2024 to 15th of February 2025, was the artist’s first solo in Bihar since he left the state three decades ago. His ‘ghar wapsi’ had spurred the enthusiasm with which people gathered to experience the show. The Director General of Bihar Museum, Anjani Kumar Singh, had taken on the role of the curator for the exhibition—an artistic collaboration between two men known to be long-time friends. As he helped us navigate through the show, Singh drew our attention to Doot (2003), the Ambassador car installed right outside—this was, of course, an iconic installation of Gupta’s—and told us that the design of the show was meant to create drama and surprise the viewers. That he had successfully accomplished this was obvious to us from the reactions of the visitors. Inside, we saw, amongst other works, Two Mechanized Cows (2023)—two Bullet motorcycles replete with milk pails strung around the handles, engines off as if dawdling to simulate everyday life in an Indian town (even when you knew that the artist had cast the sculptures in bronze). As Peter Nagy of Nature Morte, Gupta’s gallery, observed: “He understands the power of the simple object or image and knows when to present it without excess embellishment.” Even though he had acknowledged the influence of Western art practitioners, particularly Marcel Duchamp, Gupta made the narrative personal by articulating the transitions and struggles between development and tradition. The inner landscape was personal. The Way Home, spread across different areas, used stainless-steel kitchen utensils to recreate icons familiar to Indians everywhere, namely tiffin boxes, thalis, lotas and bundled packages on airport trolleys. There was also Thik paas me (2012), a thali where atta dough (in fibreglass) sat under a checked cloth. These were vignettes of everyday life, standing in for living things in Indian lives. In an interview with fellow contemporary Jitish Kallat for The Khoj Book, Gupta said: “I am very comfortable with the common man… I think that’s the strength of my work. It comes from the common people. And drama in India, especially something like Bollywood, realises the common man. Tragedy, comedy, love, war, we go through all the political and non-political beliefs. That is why there is a ‘hungry’ god and a cascade of utensils