The Weight of Unseen Eyes

I was standing in the grocery store line this morning, fumbling with my wallet, when I felt a prickle on the back of my neck. I turned around, but there was no one looking at me—just a woman staring intently at her phone and a man reading a magazine. Still, the feeling lingered. It made me wonder how often we are the subject of someone else’s quiet observation without ever knowing it. We walk through our days thinking we are the main characters, moving through our own private dramas, while the world around us continues its own secret, parallel life. There is something unsettling about the idea that our most vulnerable moments—the times we are most lost or confused—might be happening right in front of an audience we cannot see. We are constantly being watched by the periphery, by the shadows of people who are busy with their own stories, indifferent to our own. Does it change how we carry ourselves if we imagine we are always being seen?

Biplab Arahan Majumder has captured this exact feeling of unseen presence in his work titled Gossiping of the Shadows. It is a striking reminder of the layers that exist in every public space. Does this image make you feel like the observer or the one being watched?