Handmade Tales

It was my son who informed me of Naya village in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal, a village inhabited by traditional chitrakars, those who have adopted painting narrative scrolls as a way of living for many generations now. These narrative scrolls are called pata chitras and I remembered the Kalighat school of such paintings which used to flourish a hundred years ago or thereabouts in Calcutta. Essentially, folk art. So one fine morning we took the express train to Kharagpur junction and from there a suburban local to Balichak. Buses and trekkers were available to Naya and this is how we found the village - 

As you can see, it appeared to be a painted village! We also learnt that the colours used in painting the narrative scrolls were all vegetable colours sourced locally from leaves, roots, flowers and fruits. 

In the olden days, these people used to roam different places with these scrolls and when invited, exhibited these scrolls with accompanying songs. Kind of a primitive bioscope! Usually, these were about mythological figures and folklore. At some point of time, morality creeped in, with stories of waywardness and consequences, with accompanying panels. Reminds one of Dante's hell ...

The house of Shyamsundar Chitrakar and Rani, his wife came first. He was quite eager to show us his paintings as well as the source of his colours. He also explained that the artwork on T shirts and fabric is done by using synthetic acrylic colours but the colours on the scrolls, paper or fabric, were invariably vegetable colours. And I bought that picture of Ganesha, have had it framed and put up in my home 

Here is Shyamsundar Chitrakar unrolling one narrative scroll and singing along  - 

Next door, Mousumi and her younger sister were busy painting umbrellas and dupattas (stoles & scarves) and I bought some knick knacks from them, a T shirt and some miniature pots. Painted pots

Many of these people have visited countries like Norway, Japan, the UK etc with their wares, supported by NGOs. Two of the artists in the village are National Award winners and we had the good fortune of meeting Anwar Chitrakar, one of them. His mother was very kind to show us some of his works which were truly awesome and I was told that his works are hanging in several museums abroad. But first, the seeds of the latkan tree, which gives a vibrant orange as you can see on my palms

Here is Anwar (rudely woken up from his siesta) and some of his paintings. If I had Rs 6000/- in my pocket, I would have definitely bought one of them and I will, one of these days ..

Anwar's elder brother showed us some entirely hand painted sarees, which must have taken a lot of time and patience! And we were grateful for the black tea with a pinch of lemon

Bahadur Chitrakar has converted his house into an exhibition. He was not at home, but his family members welcomed us to have a look see

I just had to get one of those aluminium kettles, painted with folk motifs, a cousin sister in mind. It appears the stream of visitors to this unique village is increasing, and the West Bengal State government has built a permanent museum in the village itself. Sadly however, the museum is almost always under lock and key.

The children of the village were very friendly and were extremely adept at striking a pose for the camera, as you can see!

I wish we had more of such villages, more of such people devoted to traditional crafts and conscious of the environment around us. Truly, the salt of the earth!