"Draupadi, no doubt, is the supreme character of Arup Das's Mahabharat. Like the epic itself, he creates a mosaic of right and wrong, good and evil, life and death. The extremes are positioned in the same canvas to leave no uncertainty about the ethics that have guided life in this ancient land. So Dhitarashtra and Gandhari are smothered by folds and folds of drapery. No, there's no ambivalence about the person Arup Das puts in the dock. This one man's blind love for his own blood led to the decimation of his flock and created a line of lamenting widows, the artist singles out. He seats an inconsolable Dhritarashtra on a throne of skeletons, while those who've died are disembodied presences demanding justice. "Jawab do!" they could well cry out. "Isn't the king responsible for the well being of the entire flock?" the artist could well ask.
And in all this 'sawal-jawab', the present-day viewer could perhaps discern a resonance of the modern-day ruler."
An excerpt from the exhibition essay by Ratnottama Sengupta.