For many of us, ceramic means tableware like cups, saucers, bowls, vases, or plates. One peep into potters’ bhattis (kilns) in and around Auroville and Puducherry will change this misconception.
You will be blown away by the experimentation and the utter uniqueness of each creation coming out of these kilns. If you aren’t told that they are glazed ceramic or stoneware products, you will certainly mistake them for modern art, sculptures, or some other unique pieces.
Artworks from Adil Writer’s ‘Sweet Dreams’ series. Images Courtesy: Marco Saroldi, Auroville
Master potter Sandeep Manchekar of Anvi Pottery near Mumbai, explains, “Puducherry is the Kashi of ceramic pottery. Nearly five decades ago, the modern world of pottery or stoneware began there, later spreading to different parts of India.”
In fact, when we think of good ceramics, the image that comes to mind is of simple earth or ash-coloured handmade elite tableware. They are so stylish that every city dweller with money in their kitty aspires to own at least a couple of such coffee mugs if not the entire array of such handmade tableware. They all come from the Union Territory of Puducherry and its neighbouring town, Auroville. It’s their simplicity which has got them a worldwide market.
In fact, outside of this region, they are sold only in boutiques or high-end shops.
Puducherry now has a parallel niche of studio potters, who of course, still make the usual tableware “for sustenance” as they laughingly admit, but they have stepped out of their comfort zones to indulge their creative sides.
Not only do they try different shapes and sizes, but they also experiment with textures, colours and firing techniques to come up with unique pieces. The final product looks like abstract art that sometimes makes a social or political statement but majorly helps to enhance interiors.
Rakhee Kane
In India, there are only a couple of pottery hubs famous for their distinctive pottery. From the South, the century-old red clay terracotta products range from small household items to the large Iyengar horses; in Rajasthan, the Jaipur pottery is famous for its blue decorative vases, jars, wall plates; and then there is the ornamentally painted tableware from Banaras.
Besides these main pottery hubs, there is also a small hub of potters in the north-east state of Manipur. These products are different from the rest of India. They are black and make for amazing tableware.
The domination of Puducherry and Auroville pottery has an interesting story. It began somewhere in the early 1970s with Deborah Smith, a graduate in the Japanese language, who studied pottery in the US.
Later, while in Japan to enhance her craft, she pursued pottery for more than two years. She was an ardent follower of spiritual guru Sri Aurobindo and his disciple, Mirra Alfassa. When Deborah followed Mirra to India, she was asked to start a craft which would involve the local people of Puducherry and give them a decent livelihood.
Deborah thought of pottery as the locals were skilled in traditional terracotta. So, in 1971, along with Ray Meeker, another American ceramic potter, she set up Golden Bridge Pottery (GBP) in Puducherry.
GBP changed the pottery scene in India. It was from here that the journey of many present-day potters began. For the first time, Indian potters understood high-temperature firing, gas firing, soda firing, besides the traditional wood firing kilns and glazing.
At present, many potters also join in community firings of large-scale Anagama (Japanese style of firing) kilns.
“I can safely say that if Ray and Deborah hadn’t planted their roots in Puducherry with GBP, the thriving scene of studio ceramics and functional stoneware wouldn’t be around,” declares Auroville-based Adil Writer of Mandala Studio.
Adil Writer. Image Courtesy: Shuchi Kapoor
A former architect and interior designer from Mumbai, Adil decided to add pottery to his skills and joined a seven-month course at GBP in 1998. Since then, the potter’s clay has him hooked. Working, learning, experimenting at this studio for three more years, he decided to join Mandala Pottery in Auroville, creating more magic with clay.
No more a professional architect, Adil’s creations still have an architectural touch to them. But his latest series of baby-faced figurines titled ‘Sweet Dreams’ is more of a sculpture, where ceramic dolls are created in different poses and grouped with several objects. Though he doesn’t like to admit it, many of his creations make strong social observations and statements.
In fact, just as every artist has a signature line identifying their works, even studio potters have a mark of their own. Like Rakhee Kane of Aavartan Studio Pottery in Auroville. If you see ceramic pottery with a marbled texture or a glazed product with small painted motifs, you can be sure the pottery has come from her.
An alumna of Industrial Ceramics at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Rakhee brings to her works her training as a painter. She is very interested in the pottery made and used in rural India, especially the architecture and landscape of Rajasthan. Her ceramic plaques are really big and resemble the large brass plates from the desert state, used either as table or wall decorations. She admits she loves to paint and makes different surfaces on her pottery.
Rakhee Kane with her pottery
Her recent work, titled ‘Shifting Identities’, has been highly appreciated. It has three-dimensional ceramic walls in raw multi-coloured clay.
After NID and a few years of work, Rakhee too entered GBP in 2005, to enhance her ceramic pottery skills. Laughingly, she admits that nearly every studio potter in and around Auroville is a product of GBP. “We come to learn from GBP and get so enchanted by the pottery and the conducive atmosphere that we stay put there.”
“And why not?” asks Sandeep. “More than 100 potters get a chance to stay close to each other, exchange ideas and interact with visiting potters, both Indian and foreign. Naturally, Auroville has become a great place for studio potters and a training centre for many.”
To this, Rakhee adds that people trained in Aavartan and Auroville have started their own studios. Even if they are not highly creative, they make good utilitarian products, which are in demand. Adil says that it contributes to a vast and healthy expanse of ceramic work.
“Another important reason for potters to stay put in this region is the easy availability of all raw materials (clay, wood), along with a ready-made market. Puducherry and Auroville are famous for pottery, so buyers from all over come seeking us and our products. We rarely need to go out,” says Indrani Singh Cassime of Phoenix Potteries and Studio.
Indrani Singh Cassime’s works
A Visual Art Graduate, this Delhite was wooed to Puducherry by her then-boyfriend and now husband. She is another brilliant product of GBP who specialises in murals, utility, and lighting products. Indrani is an independent studio potter and isn’t connected with Auroville, although her studio is located close by.
In her Anagama kiln, she fires bigger pottery items resembling centuries-old stone relics found in archaeological sites. Her chirpy self finds resemblance in her ceramic lamps which are delicate, look ethereal and are highly decorative. In her studio, she holds residencies for potters from all over.
One can be envious of these studio potters who lead a very contented life—they have large spaces for their studios, where three or four kilns can be easily installed, with clay being sourced from the nearby large Ousteri Lake (800 hectares shared by both Tamil Nadu and Puducherry). The wood to fire comes from Casuarina trees which are grown as cash crops in and around this Union Territory.
Plus, they have an added advantage of the ready-made market for the sale of their products. What more can any studio potter or artist ask for?
A hero falls in love with the heroine. Since he crosses hurdles and challenges to ‘get’ her, her world revolves around him. In the end, he ‘rescues’ her from all worldly atrocities and they live happily ever after. Pick any film from Bollywood, decode the plot and you will see the ‘cinderella-isation.’
However, this is not to say that the glamorous industry has not witnessed path-breaking female-centric roles. There are but a few.
Smita Patil in Bhumika (1977), Rekha in Ijaazat (1987), Shabana Azmi in Fire (1996), Madhuri Dixit in Lajja (2001) and Tabu in Astitva (2002) are some of the staggering examples.
A paradigm shift was witnessed in the past decade, where filmmakers wrote meatier roles for women, celebrating womanhood. Actresses on their part also took ‘bold’ decisions (sans relying on exposing their figures) and believed that Indian audiences would accept this new wave of feminism.
Spoiler alert, here’s a look at seven such films that also went on to motivate writers to ideate and actresses to demand better roles.
Right from her entry, Vidya Balan gives you an impression of just another pregnant lady who is very careful while sitting on a chair and entering a taxi.
What one also sees is her determination to find her missing husband even if it means hacking a computer system or breaking into an old government office. It is only towards the end that the audience sees that it was she who was driving the entire narrative of the film.
As we worry about her safety from the spectacled man with a creepy smile, Mr Khan who wants to use her as a scapegoat and the serial killer on the loose, she turns out to be an agent who is out to kill the killer.
Balan’s character, the breathtaking climax and emotional ride is something that will forever be etched in Bollywood’s cinematic history.
Playing an autistic girl without being the butt of jokes and proving that a disabled character is not someone who only shouts like a ‘retard’, Priyanka Chopra Jonas delivered one her finest works in Anurag Basu’s Barfi.
The film came at a time when the industry was still male-dominant, and heroines were eager to be a part of the Rs 100-crore club. Though there are no dialogues for the then 30-year-old Priyanka in this film, her adorable yet determined expressions do the work.
Be it her love for Nanu (maternal grandfather), her affection and possessiveness towards Barfi (Ranbir Kapoor), her disgust for muck on shoes, Jhilmil comes out as a courageous figure who is ready to take on life as it comes.
Hats off to Priyanka for venturing into unknown territory with so much grace and conviction.
Rajouri-based, (a residential neighbourhood in Delhi) Rani cannot contain her excitement to get married to her love-interest Vijay (Rajkummar Rao) in the opening scene of superhit film, Queen. But little does the young bride know that her dream of being his wife will come crashing down only because Vijay thinks she is naive and uncool.
After being distressed for a couple of days, Rani (Kangana Ranaut) decides to go on her honeymoon to Europe, alone. Rani’s transformative journey on the trip is gradual but steady. Her self-confidence restores with her postponing her return ticket.
What follows is Rani dancing her heart out in a club, burping loudly, driving a car, showing her cooking skills, kissing a stranger, living with four men and finally dumping her fiance because compromising on her individuality is no more acceptable to her.
Kangana Ranaut’s character did not have to fight evils of society, go against her parents or rebel without a cause to discover her true self and shatter patriarchal norms that slide in subtly every once in a while. It was like she found her new self while retaining who she was, and this, in my opinion, is an example of brilliant character development.
Rani Mukerji gave a finesse performance in Mardaani, a film that addresses sex trafficking.
Shivani is a fearless cop who is out to bust the trafficking racket and rescue girls, one of whom happens to be her daughter’s friend. Besides being mentally strong, she is also physically fit, a trait that is very rare to find in a female character. She keeps her emotions aside when necessary and fights nasty goons.
It is amazing to see Rani in a new avatar with her no make-up look. It was indeed a bold move on her part to shed her ‘heroine’ image and carry the film on her shoulders.
Though the film leaves you with a heavy heart, it also establishes faith towards the police department and respect for female cops.
Calling out your relative for sexual harassment is never easy. So it is no wonder that many such cases of abuse and assault go unreported, all to retain the family’s prestige. Director Imtiaz Ali addressed this topic in Highway, starring then-newcomer Alia Bhatt.
After playing the glamorous student, Shanaya in Student of the Year (2012), Alia shocked everyone, including the critics, with her character Veera, in Highway. Who can forget her powerful monologue where she lets out years of suppression in front of her family!
She breaks free from the conditioning to be poised and graceful in public, and like Rani in Queen, discovers herself and feels liberated even though she is in captivity.
It is very rare to see a raging character like Veera in Indian film cinema, an industry where girls and women are all about sanskar and traditions.
Ye paani hai, ye aag hai Ye khudi likhi kitaab hai Pyaar ki khuraak si hai Piku!
This excerpt from Piku‘s title track sums up Deepika Padukone’s character in the Shoojit Sircar directorial.
An architect by profession, the C R Park resident is fierce, unapologetic, ambitious, caring, and independent. Piku may not be the definition of an ideal Indian daughter but she is certainly a daughter every father wants.
Not conforming to the principles set by others, Piku does not marry, and one of the reasons is her ‘Baba’ (played by Amitabh Bachchan). She breaks the stereotype that only a son can take care of his parents and normalises singlehood.
From praying in front of her mother’s frame every time she leaves the house to making firm decisions in her personal and professional lives, she is the perfect amalgamation of modern and traditional.
The father-daughter road trip from Delhi to Kolkata surely touched the chords of our hearts.
After giving spectacular performances in films in like Chandni Bar (2001), Astitva (2002), Maqbool (2003) and Haider (2014), Tabu proved yet again that she will always be the queen of ‘grey’ as Simi in the 2018 thriller, Andhadhun.
The film revolves around Akash (Ayushmann Khurrana) who wants to build his name as a pianist by moving out of India and playing blind. A victim of unfavourable circumstances, he comes in contact with Simi, a housewife of a yesteryear superstar.
In the turn of events, you see Tabu, a step-mother, being an accomplice to the murder of her own husband. In the next scene, she effortlessly throws her old neighbour from the building to erase suspicions. Simi then falls into a trap and is blackmailed for money by Akash, who has seen her commit the heinous crimes.
Mind you, at no point in the film, does Simi feel victimised, guilty or vulnerable.
Tabu’s flawed yet honest character is strong or at least pretends to be. With no insight into her past, one can only guess the reasons behind her not-a-single-flinch expression while killing the poor lady.
Though as an audience, we can differentiate between right and wrong, accepting Simi as the film’s antagonist is challenging. Personally, this is one Bollywood ‘villain’ that I rooted for. Writing strong and honest female characters is not a difficult task if actresses are courageous enough to play flawed characters. It is no wonder that director Sriram Raghavan kept Tabu in mind while writing the script.
Dressed in a white top and red skirt, a woman sweeps the verandah of her house, while another, a few miles away, struggles to get a hold of her cattle. In another part of the same village, two women can be seen grazing their land, all on the canvas of an award-winning painting.
The painting titled ‘My mother and neighbouring mothers’ is set against a rural landscape and portrays mundane life. The burst of colours brings out a sense of certain beauty in everyday chores undertaken by the painter’s mother and other rural women.
Four years ago, when Anujath Sindhu Vinaylal from Kunduvara town in Kerala’s Thrissur district, had started painting it, little did he know that it would, one day, go on to win the first prize at an international competition.
Then nine-years-old, Anujath completed the painting with no intentions of submitting it for any competitions. He had done it purely out of love for his mother.
However, last year, his father, Vinaylal, decided to participate in an international drawing competition conducted by Shankar’s Academy of Art and Book Publishing in Delhi. The result was announced when his mother, Sindhu, was alive. However, by the time certificate and medal arrived, she had passed away from a heart condition.
Today, the medal lies on her photo-frame, with Anujath’s passion for painting becoming stronger.
“My mother was my biggest cheerleader, and she would always encourage me to make each painting better than the previous one. With her faith and my father’s support, I hope to pursue this professionally after I complete my studies,” Anujath, now 14, tells The Better India.
Winning Is Not The Goal
Anujnath Sindhu Vinaylal
Anujath started painting when he was barely four, and it was his mother who identified his talent.
Like his father, he too had a keen interest in observing his surroundings and articulating them through his drawings. His subjects vary from something as simple as an ant crawling near the basin to a book lying on a shelf.
Vinaylal, a graphic designer, nurtured Anujath’s art in a very different manner. He did not send him to any classes as he believed that an institution would limit his curious mind with guidelines and rules. So, Anujath started participating in various competitions through the insistence of his school, Devamatha CMI Public School.
In 2013, he was judged as the best outstanding artist of the year in Asia’s largest children’s painting competition; it was organised by the Kerala Disaster Management Authority, YMCAs, and Balarama.
Anujath was barely nine when he won the Clint Memorial International Painting Competition conducted by Kerala Tourism in 2014.
A year later, the United Nations honoured him for his painting on ‘We Have the Power’ in an international competition held for children from countries in the Asia-Pacific Region.
In the same year, he participated in the ‘Art for Mehac’ Exhibition at the India International Centre in Delhi and won the India-Africa Forum Summit 2015 National Award from the Minister of External Affairs.
However, the proudest moment for the family was the honour bestowed on him from India’s former President Pranab Mukherjee. The family flew to Delhi to collect the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement on Children’s Day in 2016.
“He won Rs 10,000 and books worth Rs 3,000, a silver medal, a certificate, and a memento. It was an honour for us to meet our President. We always knew Anujath was talented but accomplishing this at such a tender age was beyond our imaginations,” Vinaylal tells The Better India.
This was Anujath’s last participation, after which he took a break for three years.
During this time, Anujath painted only for himself, “Painting gives me peace. I am transported to a different world every time I paint, and the best part is I can create my own rules and break the conventional routine,” says Ajunath.
“With competitions, there is the pressure to perform and win. We did not want to impose this on him. His real happiness lies in drawing without any expectations. It was only after he convinced us that he loved the spirit of participation because it made him a better artist, that we returned to it,” adds Vinaylal.
In 2019, when Vinaylal heard about the Shankar Academy competition, instead of asking Ajunath to make a new painting, he submitted one that was lying in the house. And the rest is history.
Inspired by the response from his ‘Mother’ painting, the father-duo is working on an exhibition titled ‘Such Wondrous Sights Around Me’ that will be held in April 2020 at the Kerala Lalithakala Academy in Thrissur.
It is commendable how Anujath did not let the loss of his mother affect his drawing. The boy, instead, used his mother’s faith as his strength for his creative expressions.
This photograph of the Taj Mahal was captured in the 1850’s, right after photography first came to India. Out of the millions of photographs of the monument, this one stands out for a very interesting and historical reason.
Watch to find out who clicked this iconic image and when.
It was Thirupurasundari, an architect based in Chennai, who said ‘artisans before art’ to me in a recent interview. She emphasised the need to acknowledge artisans who work hard to produce their masterpieces. And therefore, I was not surprised at her excitement when artist Manohar Devadoss was honoured with the Padma Shri this Republic Day.
Padma Shri Manohar Devadoss is not only an artist par excellence but is also a writer and innovator. His most significant works were to capture the historic, social, and cultural heritage of Madurai and Chennai in his sketches, which in many ways, remain the only documentary evidence of the times gone by. Having lost his eyesight five years ago, Manohar feels honoured that he is still remembered and his work remains relevant.
Early influences
With Thirupurasundari
He begins, “Even before I learnt to write the alphabet, I was drawing and sketching. I don’t even remember how old I was when I started.”
He remembers visiting the local zoo when he was about three. After the visit, he took his brother’s pencil and went on to sketch the giraffe in great detail. That was perhaps the beginning of his interest in art.
As he grew up, Manohar shares that he never faced any challenges while pursuing drawing.
“In fact,” he says, “even if I were drawing and sketching before my examinations, my mother would urge me to study and tell me that I could return to my art once I finished studying.”
The fact that his parents let him do what he wanted played a vital role in shaping his future. Manohar also attributes his interest in the arts to his parents, who were both excellent with their handiwork–whether it was his mother’s embroidery or his father’s sketches.
He adds, chuckling, “In my entire family, all cousins included, I was perhaps the best artist.”
In 1957, he completed his graduation in Chemistry from American College in Madurai. It was on his father’s insistence that he took a year off and pursued arts, piano, and mathematics. In 1958, he moved to Madras and took up a job at Oldham Company as a chemist.
His first real work of art was a Christmas greeting card for his boss. He had sketched fisher folk and catamarans on it. In 1962, he visited London for three months as part of his job and was exposed to various kinds of art at museums and theatres there.
Blindness no bar
Manohar Devadoss
“There came a time when I was going blind, and my vision was getting poorer by the day, so I asked Dr Badri of Shankar Netralaya to make me a powerful pair of glasses, somewhere between +26 to +28 so that I could continue sketching,” he says.
He is often asked how he continues his work despite his physical question, and he has no answer. “It just comes to me,” he says.
Until his vision was perfect, Manohar would do sketches on the spot without any trouble, but when it started deteriorating, it was a challenge for him.
“Professionally, I am a scientist, and that rational thinking ability is what I used when I sketched. I undertook each drawing like a project and completed it,” he tells me.
One of the first things he did after getting his high powered glasses, was to create a portrait of his wife–the one he calls his “most cherished” piece of work. “With these special glasses, I could immediately see better. The first thing I did was to make a portrait of my wife–Mahema.”
I can feel the love and the bond that he shared with his wife. I ask him if he’d be willing to speak more about her and the relationship they shared, and he obliged.
A teddy-bear and a doll
Manohar and Mahema at their wedding.
With almost child-like enthusiasm, he narrates, “Before Mahema and I were married, she had gone to watch a movie–To Kill A Mockingbird. In one of the scenes, a young boy takes a teddy bear to bed with him when he sleeps. I remember asking Mahema coyly if she took a teddy-bear to bed when she was younger.”
He tells me that he was always amazed at her quick-wit. Her reply was, “I did take one to bed when I was younger Mano, but I will be taking one to bed in two months from now.” (They were to be married in two months from then.)
Taking inspiration from her words, Manohar sketched a teddy-bear and a doll seated on a bed–the doll’s head resting on the teddy-bear’s arm. He tells me that he had presented this sketch to Mahema.
Manohar and Mahema–a great team
Busy at work.
The couple was also a great team, publishing some powerhouse books that combined his artwork and her writing skills.
Their first book titled The Green Well Years came out in 1997. He says, “It was an autobiographical novel and my way of paying tribute to Madurai, the city that nurtured me. The stories in the book were all inspired by my childhood friends and the life we led there. I would draw, and Mahema would write.”
Although Mahema passed away almost a decade ago, she continues to be Manohar’s muse. His second book Dreams, Seasons & Promises was a book of poems in which he poignantly writes about his wife and her life.
Manohar and Mahema
In 2002, he published another biographical novel on Mahema titled A Poem to Courage. The city of Madurai and his wife, Mahema, continued to be his muses as he published his fourth book Multiple Facets of My Madurai in 2007.
While most know Manohar as an artist par excellence, he allowed me a glimpse into the beautiful bond he shared with his wife. As we end our conversation, he says, “I wish she [Mahema] were with me today. She would have been so proud and happy at this honour I received.”
Godawari Dutta faced the loss of a father when she was barely 10, was married off at an age when she should have been going to school, and later saw abandonment by the same husband who robbed her of her childhood.
Yet, she never let her innate innocence and the will to fight die. She kept moving forward, using the skills of an ancient art she imbibed from her mother and reached the height of validation when she received the 2019 Padma Shri—India’s fourth-highest civilian award for her contributions in preserving the traditional art form of Madhubani and taking it to the world stage.
And her tale begins in Bihar’s rural landscape in the late 1960s.
How her Art Ended up in a Prime Minister’s Office
Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, was visiting drought-hit Bihar to assess the situation along with one of her aids, Bhaskar Kulkarni.
As Kulkarni travelled across the villages, conversing with the people and taking stock of the situation, he could not help but notice the peculiar style of painting adorning the mud walls of every household.
The locals called it Madhubani, an art form rooted in ancient times. Kulkarni felt that the eye-catching geometrical and floral patterns could be used as a source of income-generation in the wake of the devastating famine.
Since every local woman possessed the skill of ‘Madhubani’, the government-run All India Handicrafts Board requested them to transfer their ritual wall paintings to paper, later to be sold in urban markets.
Among those innumerable paintings, a colourful painting depicting the battle of Mahabharata was not sold. Instead, it landed on Indira Gandhi’s desk after it grabbed Kulkarni’s attention.
That painting belonged to a 20-something girl, Godawari Dutta, from Bahadurpur village in Bihar, who was destined to take the art beyond seas.
Now in her 90s, Dutta is an internationally-acclaimed artist whose paintings are displayed in Mithila Museum in Tokamachi in Japan and in Mithila Painting Museum in Madhubani, Bihar.
Dutta with Japanese delegates in Mithila Museum in Japan. Source: Tokio Hasegawa
Dutta hails from a region where lives are cemented in patriarchal norms and women are expected to remain within the limits of their house. Along the way, she lost her father during her childhood, was a victim of the evil practice of child marriage which culminated in her husband’s desertion.
Against these personal losses, Dutta made sure that her life flowered through Madhubani.
“It is my love for Madhubani and unconditional support from my mother that helped me get through every challenge,” Dutta tells The Better India (TBI).
Subhadra Devi, Dutta’s mother and guru
Dutta was born in the pre-independence era where being born a girl was looked down upon. Across India, every mother would groom her daughter to be an ideal wife. Manners, ethics and culinary skills were the only things that most daughters would inherit.
In Bahadurpur, it was no exception.
Among all the customs that limited her growth, she was grateful for a cultural heritage where every mother would pass on Madhubani art form.
According to folklore, each girl in the village was mandated to learn Madhubani, which originated in the Mithila region in Bihar to keep the art form alive.
Traces of the 2500-year-old custom are found in Ramayana. It is believed that on King Janak’s orders, an artist painted Sita’s wedding with Ram in Mithila. Even now, women in Bihar are invited to paint Madhubani on walls and floors during auspicious events like weddings, festivals and religious ceremonies.
Dutta’s mother, Subhadra Devi, was a well-known artist and would often be invited to draw scenes from Ramayana and Mahabharata or symbols of love like flowers and parrots.
“The paintings are drawn in Kohbar Ghar (nuptial chamber) to bless a newlywed couple. The couple spends three nights in the room and on the fourth night consummate the marriage surrounded by the colourful paintings,” Dutta explains.
Fascinated by the art, Dutta would replicate the same on walls of her house capturing images of deities and natural elements like fish, elephant, turtle, sun and moon.
“Art is in my genes. I had the privilege of nurturing it under one of the finest artists, my mother. While everyone believed that she was a natural, only I have seen the kind of hard work she put in. She would spend hours on perfecting something as simple as a line. From her I learnt to respect and preserve the art form,” says Dutta.
When Dutta started out, brushes and paints had not yet reached her village.
They used fingers, nib-pens, twigs, fingers and match-sticks and natural dyes, “Black came from charcoal, yellow from turmeric, white from rice, blue from indigo, saffron from marigold and so on. We made the outlines from rice paste.”
Interestingly, Dutta has never used a brush for any of her paintings.
Taking forward her mother’s legacy, Dutta too has painted in several Kohbar Ghars. Just like her mother, she never charged a single penny for her artwork for she believed that painting was a form of a blessing.
Fame Amidst Struggles
After her husband left the home to never return, the responsibility of running the house and looking after her son fell solely on Dutta. This was during the same time when the All India Handicrafts Board started selling Madhubani paintings. Naturally, she grabbed the opportunity.
Over the next few years, she channelised all her energy in improvising the art. She participated in pan India exhibitions. She even made several trips to Germany and Japan for exhibitions.
Her paintings gained fame. Interestingly, her work was so popular that agents and people came to her to buy paintings.
“I started selling my paintings at Rs 5. I would participate in at least 10 exhibitions in a year. I learnt a lot from other art forms like warli, kalamkari, pithori and kalighat. Travelling increased my wisdom further.”
In the 80s and onwards, she started visiting educational institutions to impart her skills. Additionally, she took people under her wings to guide them in the traditional art she received from her mother. She claims to have taught 50,000 people including students and artists from across the country in the last 35 odd years.
The Legacy of Godawari Dutta
To keep the aesthetic form alive, Dutta never turns away anyone who comes to her doorstep. Though she cannot draw and paint anymore, her love for Madhubani has not subsided a bit. Now, she happily sits on her chair and shares her wisdom about the art form to her guests.
Dutta has been around long enough to witness drastic changes in India’s art scene.
Comparing Madhubani of the past and present, Dutta elaborates, “The present Madhubani scene has completely changed. Acrylic colours have replaced natural dyes. In our times, no two Madhubani paintings would be the same. Over the years, I have witnessed the art form being a part of mass production. From napkins, dupattas, wall hangings, sari, kurtis to home decor items, patterns of Madhubani can be seen everywhere today. In a way, it is great as the once dying art has become part of our national heritage,” she signs off.
All the images are sourced from Priti Karn, grandaughter of Dutta.
Vishal Samjiskar dips a paintbrush into a palette and makes smooth strokes on a blank canvas with ease; almost as if he could do this blindfolded. Which is why it comes as a surprise that the 39-year-old, who has been painting for almost three decades and asserts that he is first and foremost an artist, isn’t pursuing it full time.
“I work as an artist at an advertising firm by day and a delivery executive with Swiggy at night. I took up the latter job about two years ago, as I would barely earn Rs 10,000 from the art orders I was receiving. It isn’t easy to sustain a family of five with that amount, so I had no other option but to juggle multiple jobs,” says the Mumbai resident.
Vishal paints at his work station.
An artist is born
Vishal still remembers the day he fell in love with painting. “I was in Class 5, and had participated in a drawing competition. The theme of the story was a dream sequence, so I visualised a fairy and drew something. I was surprised that I won first place, and this is what perhaps pushed me to pursue this career,” recalls Vishal nostalgically.
Luckily for him, his parents recognised his talent and did not stop him from pursuing it. His talent was undeniable, and he was only in Class 12 when he started taking orders, and eventually went on to acquire a Diploma in commercial art.
Vishal painting murals
“I would get orders to paint portraits, landscapes and even wallpapers. However, making a living just from art is a massive challenge. When I had just started taking orders, I would charge anywhere between Rs 500 to 1000, and the rates have increased only slightly. So, you can say that I became a delivery executive by compulsion,” says Vishal.
The Turning Point
While going about delivering food, Vishal would occasionally strike up conversations. This art of small talk is what worked in his favour when he met two customers—Chaarvi Golechha and Nikhil George—who would go on to change his life.
Photo to portrait painted by Vishal.
“Vishal was delivering my meal when he saw a painting in my hall and asked me if I was fond of art. The question led to a conversation, and eventually, he pulled out his phone and showed me pictures of his paintings. I was stunned, and right at that moment, felt like doing something for him,” recalls Chaarvi, a 21-year-old.
She went on to open an Instagram account for Vishal in June 2019 and ever since, has been handling all his posts and orders on the platform.
Pans transformed into pieces of art.
The meeting with Nikhil was more recent. On January 6 2020, the banker posted a tweet to spread the word about Vishal and his talent, and to his utter surprise, it went viral.
This is Vishal. He delivered my Swiggy order today. He’s an artist and he is looking for work. Do let me know if you would like to get a painting/wall art commissioned. I can put you in touch with him. Do spread the word and help him out! pic.twitter.com/3HCMaYSuRx
Speaking to a publication, Nikhil said, “The first night, there wasn’t much of a response—maybe 10 or 15 likes. But the next day, my phone blew up. By the third day, he’d been retweeted almost 6,000 times, with 12,000 likes!”
People haven’t stopped praising the artist for his incredible work, and what’s more, there has been a renewed interest in his Instagram account. Vishal claims that several people have contacted him and commissioned new artwork.
Social media catapults to popularity
Vishal is especially thrilled with the fact that apart from receiving orders from individuals, he has begun to receive institutional support, too.
If he is willing to come to Malda, which we will pay for, we are looking for an artist to paint an Aaganwadi Centre here. Might not get paid as much but would be great exposure for his work.
While Vishal is thrilled with the responses and looking forward to fulfilling them, his plans for the future are modest, and revolve around creating more art as that is his one true passion.
“While it would be nice to paint something challenging and I am hoping I get the opportunity to do that, I hope to focus more on my art, as that is what gives me true joy,” he says, signing off.
If you are interested in owning a piece or commissioning artwork, contact Vishal at vishart.world@gmail.com or message him on Instagram by following on this link to his account.
“Main Khullam khulla aaj yeh izhar karta hoon…. aadmi hoon aadmi se pyaar karta hoon..”
It is a sign of evolution in Indian cinema when a popular actor and a household name like Ayushmann Khurrana openly declares his love in a popular 80s track, ‘Pyaar bina chain kaha re’.
Sporting a sparkling top with shiny bell-bottoms, the remixed song is a part of his upcoming film Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan. The film is a progressive attempt towards addressing homophobia and raising awareness on same-sex love.
Indian cinema has produced several productions revolving around the LGBTQ+ community in the past, but a majority of them have been niche, reaching a small segment of the population.
But what makes Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan significant is its attempt at bridging the gap between society and the queer community with the casting of a mainstream actor! The trailer strikes the right chord with reality where the protagonists normalise homosexuality for parents and relatives, who, in turn, dismiss same-sex love as a ‘disease’.
Here are six other Bollywood films that have portrayed homosexuality realistically:
Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga comes off as a quintessential love story packed with songs, dances, one lead actor and one lead actress set in a small town of Punjab. There is melodrama in the house as the family is convinced that Sweety (Sonam Kapoor) is in love with a Muslim guy (Rajkummar Rao).
The twist unfurls when Sweety confesses that the real ‘siyyapa’ is that is she is in love with a girl.
What follows is Sweety fighting the taboo to break society’s shackles.
Along the way, the narrative highlights the emotional trauma, including alienation, loneliness, and shame that the queer community goes through for coming out of the closet.
Hats off to the filmmakers for choosing to portray a lesbian love story in mainstream cinema, something that is rare for the silver screen.
Professor Ramchandra Siras of Aligarh Muslim University was suspended after he was caught having consensual sex with a rickshaw puller. He filed a case in the Allahabad High Court in 2010 against the suspension and won. However, days after the court verdict, he died.
Based on this true story, director Hansal Mehta came up with Aligarhin 2016, starring Manoj Bajpayee as professor Siras, and Rajkummar Rao, a journalist who brings out the professor’s story.
The film explores the ruthless discrimination in society, and what it means to be queer. It has no larger-than-life dialogues or dramatic scenes, and yet, it manages to gauge the audience with occasional silences, and a constant emphasis on how labelling everything is not necessary.
Directed by Shonali Bose, Margarita With A Straw portrays the efforts of a woman at exploring her sexual identity.
The film revolves around Laila (Kalki Koechlin), an Indian woman with cerebral palsy, who falls in love with a blind Pakistani girl (Sayani Gupta). Laila is an unapologetic teenager who refuses to be ashamed about her condition and does not accept an award for it.
She shares a close relationship with her mother so much so that she lectures her mother for invading her privacy while she is watching porn. At one point in the movie, she also confesses that she is a ‘bi’ to her mother.
Laila’s journey from being a protected teenager in Delhi to a liberated woman in New York, discovering her sexual orientation is what makes this worth a watch.
After including glimpses of homosexuality in Dostana, Student of The Year and Kapoor and Sons, Karan Johar’s short in Bombay Talkies is a brilliant effort at mirroring the reality of our society. Innumerable people are trapped in loveless marriages, living in the closet, as homosexuality is forbidden in India.
The short film stars Randeep Hooda who plays husband to Rani Mukerji. A meeting between Randeep and Saqib Saleem instantly sparks an attraction between the two who find excuses to bond with each other. The sexual tension between them eventually leads to a kissing scene post which Randeep, a middle-aged man, is left with confusion and angst.
Mukerji eventually discovers his sexual orientation and ends their marriage.
It is notable to see how Randeep, like most of the closeted people, tries to save the marriage either out of fear or society’s inability to accept homosexuality.
Set in Goa in the late-90s, My Brother Nikhil, directed by Onir, is inspired by a real-life story. Featuring Juhi Chawla (Anu), Sanjay Suri (Nikhil) and Nigel (Purab Kohli), it addresses AIDS and homosexuality in a very dignified way.
Swimming champion Nikhil is diagnosed with HIV (not because he is in a relationship with a man). On finding that he is gay and HIV positive, an array of insults follow from his parents and friends. His sister Anu and lover Nigel are the only two people who support him.
The narration deserves a special mention, which normalises a gay relationship, where the two partners fight, cry, laugh and even express jealousy. Laced with occasional humour, heart-wrenching scenes, and terrific performances, this film is relevant today.
Deepa Mehta’s Firewas way ahead of its time by exploring a relationship between two married women, “People hadn’t seen such a film — sadly, in these 20 years, hardly any films have been made on same-sex relationships. For India, it is definitely a landmark film,” Nandita Das tells Indian Express.
The Indo-Canadian drama starring Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi was opposed vehemently across the country. Several shows were disrupted and movie theatres vandalised. Finally, after an uproar from feminist organisations, the film ran without any trouble.
The story revolves around Sita (Das) and Radha (Azmi) whose husbands choose celibacy or mistresses over their wives. This leads them to form an intimate, passionate relationship amidst a close-minded society.
The intricately woven scenes showcase how subjugated women in a patriarchal society find solace in each other and eventually develop a physical relationship. The film also comments on the suppression of female sexuality where women are no more than objects to satisfy their male counterparts.
Deep into the thick, dense forests in Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra’s Bhamragad area, live the Madia Gonds. This endogamous tribal community is one of the country’s most under-developed tribes.
This is why they are one of the 75 tribes that have been categorised by the Ministry of Home Affairs as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG)s in the country. Additionally, the region is a witness to clashes between the naxal groups and the armed forces, which further secludes it from the rest of the country.
IAS Manuj was posted in Bhamragad in November last year.
When Manuj Jindal was posted in Bhamragad in November last year, the 30-year-old IAS officer knew the challenge that lay before him. From the moment he took up his duties in the district, the Manuj has brought a sea of difference with his progressive and innovative initiatives.
From upskilling the tribal people in art and crafts to working in the field of education, Manuj’s hands have been full, to say the least.
And, the resulting transformation is astonishing to look at and more so because it happened in a short span of time.
One of the biggest success stories has been the renovated tehsildar’s office. The IAS officer changed the face of the old, dilapidated building into a training centre for arts and crafts as a source of earning for its tribal students.
Currently, the centre, which opened its doors mid-Jan this year, provides six-month training to the participants at a stipend of Rs 3000 per month. The learners get a portion from the sale of handicrafts they make. Additionally, the centre makes provisions for accommodation and food for them for free.
Transformation pictures of the Tehsildar’s office which is now an art and crafts centre where the tribal students train
Currently 36 learners between the ages of 18 to 45 are under training at the centre.
“When people think about this region, they only focus on how underdeveloped or disturbed this region is. But, when you truly try to understand their culture, you realise that they are actually progressive in their beliefs. The men and women are treated as equal and there is no kind of caste system prevalent. There is so much to learn from these communities,” states Manuj.
Rising up to the Challenges to Enable and Empower
Since the region is deeply forested, it is often very difficult for people in the region to access facilities in the hour of need. Furthermore, the region is malaria endemic and prevalence of sickle cell anemia is high, informs Manuj.
Other than that, during monsoons, the region gets flooded as it has four rivers — Indravati, Pearl Kota, Pamul Gautami and Pandya — flowing through it, making it more cut off from the rest of the state.
Bamboo craft being taught at the art centre
Before Manuj began his work, he knew that it was going to be difficult to win the confidence of the people who have lived the majority of their lives amidst violence and political tensions. Creating channels of smooth communication was, indeed, going to be an uphill task for the newly appointed IAS officer.
Yet, the adamant officer found a way in.
“Through interaction, I found that they are very simple people who just wanted to come out of the cycle of poverty. So, I knew that I would have to show them quick results,” shares Manuj.
In the early days of the posting, Manuj explored the area and spoke to the people, a strategy that helped him understand the landscape well. He also visited the tribals’ homes in the region and during these sojourns, the one thing that leapt at him was the streak of creative talent that ran throughout the community.
Students in the art centre transform the wall with beautiful artwork.
“I was amazed to see how the tribal community made use of every thing that we would normally throw away. Like, I saw a water bottle that was made by drying the body of a gourd. They made pipes using bamboo, and made musical instruments using wood. They also made beautiful objects using brass and bronze,” recalls Manuj of his first visits.
Such a close connection with all things natural and the many ways the people were leading a sustainable life had a lasting impression on the IAS officer and was instrumental in the founding of the arts and crafts centre.
The Arts and Crafts Centre—from a Hovel to a Home for many
One day Manuj was walking around his office compound when his eyes fell on an abandoned, dilapidated building.
Students learn to craft objects from bamboo
“My first thought was why was such a building not being put to any good use. It was on a big compound and I saw a potential in renovating the structure after looking at the official records of the building,” says Manuj.
He then got in touch with Suresh Poongati, a local artisan who belonged to the Koyanguda village. Talented in Dokra art, bamboo work and wood work, Poongati shuffles his time between his village and Pune where he runs an art centre.
“I knew he would be the perfect person who could teach the artisans as he understood them well. That is when I approached him and he really helped with his inputs which were instrumental in making the art centre a reality,” he says.
Sculptures being stored at the art centre
However, what the art centre really needed was people and the tribals in the region were already very apprehensive of the administration. But, Manuj had a plan in place. Proving how even the smallest of details can help make big changes, Manuj appointed managers who were bilingual.
“We appointed a few field managers who would go and speak to the tribals. These people are known as ‘duibhasis’, as they can speak two languages — Marathi and Madia,” explains Manuj. The plan actually worked and the art centre with many people eagerly coming forward for upskilling after the duibhashis spoke to them.
And now the results are visible to all.
Take Ajay Malugawade, a 25-year-old from the Arewade village in Bhamragad taluka for example.
Ajay is has been learning bamboo art at the centre. He finished his bachelor’s degree from the Gadchiroli University and also pursued a degree in Physical Education from Nagpur University. However, he had to discontinue due to family problems.
“The reason I enrolled as a student in this arts and crafts centre is because I wanted to learn some skill. Once I finish this art course in six months, I will be able to do this at home and make money,” says a hopeful Ajay.
Ajay’s mother is a farmer and he has two younger siblings who are still studying. His father passed away a few years back. “In a taluk like Bhamragad, setting up an art and crafts learning centre can help so many people in the region. I am really happy about what is being taught to us,” says Ajay contently.
Inclusive Development
Manuj also realised that in terms of development indices, the district was lagging behind.
As far as the field of education was concerned, Manuj saw that the literacy rates in Bhamragad stood at 54.71 percent, lower than the national average of 59.5 per cent. The parents in this tension-riven region were reluctant to send their children to school in fear of untoward incidents. Thus, the schools would see high drop-out rates.
Beautiful tribal jewellery made by the students
“When I reached here, I saw that the illiteracy levels are really high in the region and I really wanted to understand their point of view,” says Manuj.
Manu first approached the private residential schools to talk to the teachers about the challenges they were facing. Upon speaking with the teachers he found that having to live away from their families, the teachers were very demotivated. Also, the poor network only made things worse, leaving them with very little incentive to do well in the circumstances.
Therefore, to overcome this challenge, Manuj decided to host monthly meetings with teachers from across the eight residential schools in the region.
“I think this is really helping because the communication channels are clear now. The teachers share with us about the new creative art or music related initiatives they want to start in the schools and we release the funds for that immediately. They also feel now that their grievances are being heard which is great,” explains Manuj.
A student is being trained in sculpting at the art centre.
Furthermore, the IAS officer was also a part of an exhibition (mela) that was organised in collaboration with Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India (Alimco), where the main objective was to make disability aids accessible to the differently-abled. “Here, there were measurements taken for the prosthetic limbs. These will be made available to them by the end of April or early May,” says Manuj.
Just three months in, and having brought about positive changes in the region, what does Manuj hope for the future?
“When we think of development, we see giant buildings as a marker for progress. But, after coming here and learning about these communities, I realised that there is great value in conservation, being sustainable and having an equal society. These are the values that I want to also take forward wherever I go,” says Manuj signing off.
Thirty-odd years ago, an English film on the staid old Doordarshan channel (remember, it was the only one), was an event.
When the papers announced that the offering on a certain Friday evening was that classic Disney cartoon film, Jungle Book, my sister and I scarcely believed our luck. It was a late-night screening, and so permissions had to be sought in exchange for promises made (‘Yes, we will finish our homework on Saturday morning and hit the books on Sunday too!’)
And so, the three of us–my sister, an old uncle who happened to be visiting, and I–waited with bated breath for the spectacle to unfold.
When it did, it was a crushing disappointment. It wasn’t the animated feature.
This Jungle Book had real people, and a strange name rolled off the credits–Sabu! His name in capital letters appeared in a bigger font than the others that were listed below him. Clearly, he was the lead actor, something of a star even.
My sister and I were crushed. Our old uncle wasn’t. He slapped his thighs in glee and exclaimed, “Oh my god! It’s Mysore Sabu!”
My sister slunk off to catch up on her sleep. She didn’t deem Sabu worthy of keeping her up. My uncle and I watched on. I remember not being disappointed at all.
In retrospect, Sabu’s Jungle Book, a celebration of empire and colonialism, appears dated. The ‘exotic’ Indian sets and the European actors who had been ‘blackfaced’ to resemble the Indians they were portraying, belonged to a time long gone. Yet, in that overly white, racist, and condescending cinematic world of the English films of the 1930s and 40s, Sabu, the Indian boy, made his mark.
Sabu was the first Indian to ‘make it’ in Hollywood, long before Priyanka Chopra, Om Puri and Irffan Khan became noted actors in the west. Even inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Now forgotten, in his time, Sabu was the go-to actor for exotic Indian and Asian roles.
His beginnings were innocuous. He was born in 1924 in Karapur near then Mysore. Many sources cite his full name as Sabu Dastagir. But that appears to be erroneous. Selar Sabu or Selar Sheikh Sabu was his actual name. His brother, Sheikh Dastagir, went to Hollywood with him and somehow, owing to a mix-up of immigration forms, their last names got interchanged. And so, for Hollywood, he was just Sabu, his full name was never mentioned.
Sabu’s mother, it appears, died when he was young, and in 1931, his father too passed away. The six-year-old boy went on to serve in the elephant stables of the Maharaja of Mysore, and later as a mahout.
In 1934 or 1935, Robert Flaherty was in Mysore filming for Elephant Boy and spotted ten-year-old Sabu, in all likelihood, sitting on an elephant. And that’s how he was drafted into the film.
Flaherty was something of a cinematic pioneer. Among other things, he was the maker of Moana (1926), often described as the ‘first documentary’. It is likely that Elephant Boy too was intended to be a documentary, but the film’s producer, Alexander Korda, had a costume drama in mind and handed over the production to Zoltan Korda, his brother.
Elephant Boy proved a big hit, with much of the praise reserved for Sabu, described by critics as a “complete natural”.
Zoltan brought Sabu to London, filmed him with elephants borrowed from circuses and zoos, and in 1937, a very different Elephant Boy, based on a Rudyard Kipling story, hit the screens. O’Flaherty and Korda went on to share the Best Director award at the Venice Film Festival that year, and the film, while garnering mixed reviews, was a box-office success.
Sabu was on his way.
The Kordas were quick to recognise Sabu as someone who could draw crowds and signed him up for more films. The Drum, the Kordas’ first colour film, followed in 1938. In keeping with Sabu’s persona, it was again an exotic Indian offering, featuring him as Prince Azim who befriended a British lower-class drummer boy. The film sparked controversy in India as many were upset about the depiction of Indians.
In 1940, Sabu starred in The Thief of Baghdad, a lavish production. Shot in both England and the US, the movie was the Kordas’ biggest US hit and even won the Academy Awards for special effects, cinematography and art direction. Director Michael Powell said that Sabu had a “wonderful grace” about him.
Next up was The Jungle Book in 1942, shot extensively in Hollywood, also a success.
His contract with the Kordas now completed, Sabu stayed on and signed up with Universal Pictures. He was now something of a star in the industry.
He appeared opposite Maria Montez in Arabian Nights (1942), White Savage (1943), Cobra Woman (1944) and Tangier (1946). In 1944, he also became an American citizen and enlisted in the US Air Force, even flying World War II missions as tail-gunner. It was a time when most Hollywood stars were aiding the war effort. Given that it was the war, Sabu probably felt the need to affirm his identity as an American citizen. For his services, he was awarded the distinguished flying cross.
Amidst all this, it was clear that his acting career was stalling. In Tangier, he was reduced to playing a supporting role. Presumably, his typecast image of an exotic Asian man began to work against him after a while. Given his looks, he could not hope to be cast as a mainstream American character.
In 1946, Sabu went back to England and starred in Black Narcissus (1947), based on a Rumer Godden novel, in which he played a young prince. His co-star was Jean Simmons.
Another film soon followed–The End of the River (1947)–in which he was the lead star. This story was set in Brazil and Sabu played an Amazonian native, Manoel. But it performed poorly, and Sabu went back to Hollywood.
His next film, The Man-eater of Kumaon (no resemblance to the Jim Corbett book beyond the title), was released in 1948. That year, Sabu began filming The Song of India. On the sets, he met Marilyn Cooper, who played a small role in the film. Sabu and Cooper married the same year.
Given the heights that Sabu had reached in the early 1940s, the ‘50s weren’t very kind to him cinematically. By all accounts, he appears to have built a successful career in real estate in LA with his brother even as his film career waned. He continued to play the same exotic Indian/Asian roles with turban and faux jewellery in film after film, many of them low-budget European productions. There were films like Hello Elephant (1952), The Black Panther (1956) and a 1957 production entitled Sabu and the Magic Ring, all attempts to milk his typecast exotic Asian persona. He also did a brief stint with the Harringay Circus.
In the mid-50s, he came to India and was considered by Mehboob Khan to play the role of Birju in Mother India (1957), a role that ultimately went to Sunil Dutt. Some reports mention that given the fact that Sabu was a US citizen, he could not obtain a work permit in India. He was never to act in an Indian film.
In a comeback of sorts, he played Dr Lin Chor in Mistress of the World (1960) and also starred in Rampage (1963).
While there are clear issues with imperialism, orientalism and sexism in watching many of these films today, they can be viewed as products of their time and one can marvel at the Indian mahout who became the first international Indian star.
On December 2 1963, Sabu died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California. According to his widow Marilyn Cooper, Sabu had a complete physical exam just a few days before his death, at which time his doctor told him, “If all my patients were as healthy as you, I’d be out of business.” Thus, his sudden death of a heart attack at the age of 39 came as even more of a shock than it would have been otherwise.
His daughter, Jasmine (born 1957), went on to have a successful cinematic career as an animal trainer, dying young in 2001. His son, Paul (born 1960), embarked on a successful music career, working with David Bowie and Madonna, among others.
For his 2020 calendar collection, G Venket Ram, a Chennai-based photographer, roped in twelve famous personalities from the southern film and dance industries and adapted masterpieces by Raja Ravi Varma into photographs.
Featuring Shruti Hassan, Samantha Akkineni, Ramya Krishnan, Shobhana and Lissy Lakshmi, the exquisite photographs which recreate iconic paintings like ‘Woman Holding A Fruit,’ ‘There Comes Papa,’ or ‘The Maharashtrian Lady,’ have left viewers in awe.
While the actors look resplendent, and the photoshoot was no-doubt meticulous, its interesting to note that Ravi Varma’s connection with films can be traced way back in the pages of history, with another stalwart—Dadasaheb Phalke.
In a way, Varma was the unsung hero behind India’s first film Raja Harishchandra. We took a walk down the memory lane to resurrect the untold story!
A trusted employee and companion
In 1894, Ravi Varma was at the peak of his popularity. For the first time in the country, perhaps, a painter’s art was no more restricted within the four walls of his studio and his closely-knitted circle of connoisseurs.
Varma’s paintings of Hindu goddesses were replicated in bulk and worshipped at almost every Hindu household, especially in South India.
From advertisement pamphlets to high-end exhibitions— his works unbridled entry everywhere in the daily life of an average Indian.
It was at this juncture that he decided to make his art further ubiquitous, and set sail towards Bombay (Mumbai). At Ghatkopar, he established a press which used oleography and lithography for mass printing of his paintings. At that time, his press happened to be one of the most innovative in India, featuring a horde of cutting-edge machines.
A young photographer named Dhundiraj Govind Phalke was one of Varma’s most trusted employees at the press when it came to perfecting the craft of photo-litho transfers of his art. Gradually, Phalke became one of his most trusted companions.
Ravi Varma’s generous gesture
Unfortunately, tragedy struck in the form of Bombay’s infamous plague epidemic at the turn of the century that claimed over millions of lives, including that of Raja Varma, Ravi Varma’s brother, who was managing the press.
His beloved brother’s death devastated Ravi Varma, and his printing business went downhill. Finally, the press was sold to Fritz Schleicher, the German technician associated with the company for supplying their machinery.
After selling the property, Ravi Varma decided to offer Phalke, his favourite employee, a considerable share of the sales proceedings. He was well-aware of Phalke’s dream to work on movie-making and provided the necessary support, both financially and morally.
Dadasaheb Phalke
Ravi Varma’s influence on Phalke’s filmmaking
On 3rd May 1913, Raja Harishchandra, India’s first full-length feature film directed by Phalke, was released at Coronation Cinema in Mumbai. For the first time, the Indian audience witnessed the magic of the motion picture.
Its impact was tremendous—Phalke went on to become Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema, and the film is considered by many to be the foundation for the film industry in the country.
It is argued that Ravi Varma’s grand gesture helped Phalke produce his dream project, and film historians have continuously reiterated the unmistakable influence of Varma’s paintings in Phalke’s movies.
From lightings to set decor, the mythical characters in Phalke’s movies often resembled Varma’s paintings. In fact, Raja Harishchandra opens with tableau, which is most probably inspired by Ravi Varma’s portrait of a king with his wife and son.
Phalke remained an ardent enthusiast of Raja Ravi Varma till his last day. The amalgamation of their creative geniuses gifted India with some of the best pieces of art till date.
Under the slanting rays of the afternoon sun, a 16-feet tall breathtaking sculpture of a ‘Haryanvi Tau’ glistens in Gopal Namjoshi’s open-air studio in Gurugram. Made entirely out of 300 kg of metal scraps, the sculpture is one of Namjoshi’s latest and most refined installations. For an everyday art connoisseur, metal scraps collected from junkyards might seem like an unusual medium for art. But the maverick sculptor has been upcycling metal waste into beautiful installations for the past nine years.
In his 25 years of career as an artist, Jaipur-born Namjoshi has experimented with a wide variety of media – ranging from oil on canvas to mixed murals to plastic waste. But, it is metal scraps that have appealed the most to him artistically. Though he himself shies away from admitting it, Namjoshi had been one of the trendsetters in India in creating sculpture from metal waste, which at present is a vocation practised by more than 100 artists across the country.
Speaking to The Better India, Namjoshi shares how metal scraps came into his life rather accidentally and has reigned in his art ever since.
It all started with a man repairing a scooter
Around 10 years back, when Namjoshi was still a resident of Jaipur, he was once sitting on the roadside when a man repairing a scooter caught his eyes. “I noticed how many metal parts were being thrown away by him as scrap. When I inquired about it, he said that these can easily be welded into other machinery parts.”
The idea stuck with him but it was not until a while later that he started exploring the domain of metal scraps in art.
By that time, Namjoshi had had over a hundred murals installed in places all over India. He was also working with watercolour and oil. At one point, he got worried about how the Western culture of ‘use & throw’ is wreaking havoc on our environment. The trend was also contagious among Asians who were traditionally more conservative in their material usage.
Drawing inspiration from other artists, Namjoshi set out on his mission to upcycle waste into art. One of his most appreciated works included an 85 feet tall tree made out of waste like tissue paper, plastic, thermocol and vinyl. The tree was designed in such a way that the viewers can interact with it.
“It received tremendous acclaim but at the same time, some people created nuisances to ruin the experience for others. Besides, it was after that work that I figured plastic was not appealing to me as an artistic medium. That’s when I switched to metal scraps,” informs Namjoshi.
Revisiting pleasant memories with junk metal
One of his very first works with metal was the Peacock series. “Back in Jaipur, peacocks were regular visitors to our home. My mom and I used to feed them also. I decided to revisit that memory with this sculpture.”
The resplendent peacock sculpture made out of rusted iron waste depicted the essence of co-existence and ecological conservation.
Since then, Namjoshi has created over 140 metal sculptures in all shapes and sizes. Near Damdama lake of Haryana, he has created a set of 50 wildlife sculptures, depicting the living kingdom in its full glory. The work has been highly appreciated and also fetched Namjoshi an international award for green art and architecture.
Namjoshi’s installation at Virat Kohli’s residence
“It’s great to see so many artists taking up metal as a medium”
His metal sculptures adorn leading luxury hotels in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities as well as the living rooms of many, including Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli’s residence.
“When I started working with metal scraps, people were very surprised as such a concept was not that well-known in India before. I cherish the fact that now so many artists are recycling such junk as a medium.”
Namjoshi collects his scrap metals mostly from small and medium vendors. “I do not cut or distort the pieces in any way, rather I prefer to use them as they were available. That is why I prefer smaller vendors where I can pick and choose scraps according to my liking. I generally avoid visiting large-scale scrap sellers where I have to find suitable pieces from a huge mountain of junk.”
In his sprawling 500 sq. m. studio in Gurugram, Namjoshi works with a team of four who help him with welding, transportation and other additional work.
For the veteran sculptor, the key to art lies in the essence of coexistence. “If you wish to coexist in peace with everything around you, it is better to practise conservation by yourself. You must also learn to modify and make peace with everything,” he advises.
Find out more about his beautiful art on his website – http://gopalnamjoshi.com
Last month, a friend of mine from Assam who is a cinephile, shared an interesting video clip of a young man exhibiting an array of martial arts skills on the sets of the period drama ‘Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior’ released earlier this year.
Playing star actor Saif Ali Khan’s stunt double in the film, the young man in question was flawless in his presentation. Further research revealed that he is Montu Deuri, a martial artist and actor from the Nam Deuri village in Assam’s Jorhat district.
Deuri, who is 23, has featured in multiple Assamese (Suspended Inspector Boro and Local Kung Fu 2) and Hindi movies (Saaho, Mardaani 2, Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota).
Before a career in the film industry, however, Montu, who is Black Belt First Dan in Taekwondo, was a national-level fighter winning multiple gold medals in domestic tournaments. He is also a Red Mongkol in Muay Thai and expert practitioner of Kung Fu.
With not enough money in sports, he decided to take the plunge in Assamese cinema. But this choice wasn’t borne out of desperation. It came from a genuine love of action films.
“I never thought that one day I would work on a Bollywood set performing martial arts. Growing up, I loved watching action films like the cult hit ‘Tom Yum Goong’ starring the legendary Tony Jaa. Of course, Jackie Chan is another favourite, but Tony Jaa was the ultimate action hero for me,” says Montu, to The Better India.
Montu Deuri
Love for the game
Coming from a rural agrarian family living deep in the Brahmaputra Valley, his parents and relatives were initially dead against the idea of learning martial arts. But his determination to learn never wavered.
“My family only had a bicycle, which my father would use to transport crops to the local market. After school, I would cycle 20 km to Jorhat city, and travel back home for the same distance. My friends and I managed to keep this a secret from my family for months, but eventually, they found out. There were days when I would not get the cycle because of my father’s work, so I’d ask my uncles to lend their cycles to me. They would scold me, but eventually give in,” he recalls.
It was in Class 9 when he began learning Kung Fu under the tutelage of Abinash Baruah, an instructor at the local Manchuria Kung Fu Academy in Jorhat, who was kind enough to let Montu learn for free because he knew how long he had travelled and the effort it took.
After more than three years of learning Kung Fu, he transitioned to Taekwondo, where he earned his stripes as a (first dan) Black Belt certified by the Kukkiwon, which is also known as World Taekwondo Headquarters, in South Korea. He needed it to compete at the Nationals.
Winning medals at the Nationals brought him much fame back in his home village with his photograph appearing in the local newspaper, but no money. Calling it a “challenging time” in his life, he decided to pursue his passion for martial arts, learning Muay Thai from Rakesh Meitei, a Manipuri, who in 1999 became the sport’s first Indian instructor.
It has been nearly nine years since Montu first began learning martial arts. Despite participating in a few privately organised tournaments and earning anywhere between Rs 10,000-Rs 20,000 in each one, he admits to having taken a lot of beating.
But what attracts him to these combat disciplines despite the real threat of serious injury?
“What I love about martial arts is understanding the craft and technique behind the fighting. There is so much untapped knowledge in these disciplines. You not only learn about fighting, which I love but also about yourself. Moreover, a dedication to learning martial arts brings discipline to your life,” he says.
High flying Montu Deuri
Transition to cinema
“I seriously began considering a career in films after the release of popular Assamese film ‘Local Kung Fu’ directed by Mumbai-based filmmaker Kenny Basumatary, which was released in September 2013. Seeing other actors from my home state performing fight sequences on screen, I thought ‘this is something I can do as well,’” recalls Montu.
Nearly a year later, his cousin, who lived 300 km away in Guwahati, called him for an informal gathering of martial arts enthusiasts and practitioners in the city. There, Montu found an opportunity to demonstrate his unique skill set, and present at this get together was Utkal Hazowary, an Assamese actor and professional martial artist who had acted in Local Kung Fu.
Suffice it to say; he was impressed by what he saw.
“He took my phone number and a demo video I had made showing my skills and forwarded it with my contact details to Kenny Sir. One evening at home, I received a call from him asking me to come to Guwahati and make a short fight video. I was so excited at the prospect of meeting him that I arrived in Guwahati three days before the scheduled meeting in October 2015 and stayed with a friend,” he says.
After they shot the video, Montu returned home again to further his training in Muay Thai. Nearly a year after that shot film, Kenny gave Montu his first big break with a role in ‘Local Kung Fu 2’, the sequel and an action adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.
The movie changed his life. Receiving a great response from cinema-goers all over the state, Montu had finally realised his dream of appearing on the silver screen.
“When I saw the demo clip, I understood he had some real fighting chops. When I met Montu in Guwahati, we shot a short fight video just to see how he would do. Initially, he was very stiff and shy. So, I called him again and reshot that video. When I came back and started working on my film Local Kung Fu 2, his confidence had dramatically increased. He was much better on the screen, so we cast him as one of the main villains in Local Kung Fu 2,” says Basumatary, to The Better India.
Since then, Montu has gone onto work with Kenny in the 2018 release Suspended Inspector Boro and has recently concluded shooting for Local Utpaat. “Kenny Sir has been a real mentor without whom I would have never found work in Assamese films, never come to Mumbai and do the things I love. He has played a massive role in shaping my career, offering me financial help and emotional support whenever I needed it,” remarks Montu.
The top notch fighter!
Bollywood Dreams
Sometime in December 2017, a few months after the release of Local Kung Fu 2, Montu visited Mumbai for the first time with Kenny.
“I took him to Mumbai because for someone with his talent there are more opportunities there than in Assam,” says Kenny.
Montu lived with Kenny and for two months gave martial arts training lessons to other aspiring artists before landing a minor gig doing stunt work with Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan for an awards ceremony.
“But one day, I got a call from Kenny Sir’s assistant telling me about an audition for a movie called Mard Ko Dar Nahi Hota Hai. I auditioned and landed a small part in it as a fighter. It was my first screen appearance in a Bollywood film. Following this movie, I worked in Saaho again as a side fighter finding screen time and in Mardaani 2 before landing a role as Saif Ali Khan’s stunt body double in Tanhaji. But beyond playing his stunt double, I was also given work training the fighters in this film,” he says.
He even got a call to work in ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’, but at the time his schedule was full working on Suspended Inspector Boro. Nonetheless, Montu admits that at no point in his life before leaving Assam did he ever think that one day he would play the stunt double of a popular Bollywood actor and even give him cues on set.
“There is no question Montu is a proper fighter. His talent is world-class. He is as good as the famed Tony Jaa. As a trained fighter, his body language is correct and perfect for fighting. I have learnt a lot from him also. After training with him, my footwork, overall body posture and movements have become much better,” says Kenny.
But screen fighting is very different from real-life fighting.
“On screen, you need to exaggerate your movements a little bit and do all your punches and kicks from a safe distance or in a controlled manner so that nobody gets hurt. Finally, your reactions to getting hit have to be very good. This is why even for small villain-type roles, we never take anybody off the cuff. We always audition them and check out their reactions. Only if their ‘getting hit’ reactions are good, we take them because it makes a massive difference to the scene,” argues Kenny.
“Montu has all these qualities. He is a real-life fighter, very good on screen, and his reactions have been very good since day one. He is the complete package. Besides, he is very creative when it comes to fight movements, fight choreography and shot taking. Often, he comes up with some brilliant ideas. He is made for this stuff,” he adds.
Learning & Growing
“Working on Tanhaji was an incredible experience. I learnt so much from those on set, particularly from the German technicians who choreographed some of the massive fight sequences with sword fighting in the climax. I picked up a few skills along the way about action choreography, filmmaking and directing. I also learnt so much from director Om Raut, who looked out for me. He helped me obtain a membership card from the Movie Stunt Artists Association, without which I couldn’t perform stunts on set,” he says.
Besides playing Saif’s body double, Montu would also walk him through some of the stunts he needed to do. However, the high-risk stunts or those Saif couldn’t do, were left to Montu.
For an eight-hour gig as a stunt double, he received around Rs 10,000 per day. As a martial arts trainer, he earned about Rs 1 lakh per month. The agreement Montu signed was for eight months. While he earned a decent sum working in the film, there remained a serious risk of injury with broken bones and fractures.
But on big-budget sets like Tanhaji, Montu claims that medical expenses borne out of any injury on set was handled by the production team.
“Besides injuries, there is always some tension about not getting regular work as well. But with my training and skill set, I am confident that it will not be a problem. Yes, I do hope that one day I land a lead role using my skills in martial arts. For the time being, such opportunities are hard to come by in this regard, but there is no harm in dreaming,” he says.
Kenny also believes that Montu is lead man material.
“He is definitely a leading man material. What we need to do is find someone with the right kind of finances to back a project worthy of his skill level. There is a Cambodian film called Jailbreak. That’s not a very high budget film, but from start to finish it is one fight sequence after another with a few breaks in between. That film is almost shot entirely in one location. If we could do something at that level here in India, Montu would be great at it,” he says.
It was yet another day, overrun with darkness and gloom when a man in his late twenties emerged from the shadows, his head full of matted and greasy hair.
As he tugged on the tattered strap of an overused jhola (cotton bag) hanging from his shoulder, his restless eyes behind the thick foggy glasses searched for someone, something or some truth amid the confusion and chaos around him. After all, he was on an important exposé mission.
The man was Chittoprasad Bhattacharya, who exposed the colonial brutality of the British Raj, 77 years ago, with nothing but his raw and powerful sketches of the Bengal famine, scribbled in his tiny notebook.
From pot-bellied malnourished kids to sad faces of mothers hiding their babies in their skeletal embrace, his pen captured the true tragedy of hunger with a silent protest against the imperial Raj’s monstrosity.
Born in Naihati, West Bengal in 1915, Chittoprasad’s political journey began in the mid-1930s when he was completing his studies at the Chittagong Government College, situated in East Bengal (present Bangladesh).
In April 1930, because of the Chittagong uprising, led by freedom fighter Surya Sen, the city was becoming the epicenter of the Bengal revolution. The crux of movement revolved around the fight against oppression from the colonial rulers and Indian land-owners or zamindars.
Like many young revolutionaries, Chittoprasad found his purpose in the larger fight for his motherland and chose the path of activism. It was the same year when he joined the Communist Party of India (CPI).
Later in the 1940s, inspired by a communist leader, writer and lawyer Purnendu Dastidar, Chittoprasad became an active member and stepped out of institutional confines to take the freedom struggle to the grassroots. He then took refuge at the office of the Student Federation of India in Kolabagan, from where many of his anti-Fascist woodcut prints, cartoons and sketches were published in CPI’s journal called Jana-Yuddha (meaning People’s war). This was a turning point in his life as he began to use art as a tool of political activism.
And then in 1943, Bengal was hit with one of the world’s worst man-made disasters—a famine that claimed the lives of more than three million people. This was the outcome of British World War II policies that robbed Bengal and its people of food grains, to feed the British military and citizens.
Despite the ‘mass-murders’ caused by starvation and sheer cruelty of the imperial forces, the western press ignored it and was obsessed with news about World War II.
Owing to this, the famine was largely unreported and undocumented. And so, CPI entrusted Chittoprasad and a photographer Sunil Janah with the sole mission of documenting and immortalising the truth.
Touring across famine-struck districts of Bikrampur and Midnapore, the duo documented grotesque images of human suffering.
Chittoprasad’s sketches captured horrific scenes of children starving away with an almost translucent layer of skin loosely covering their skeletal structure, communal killings, ravages of war and even the intricate details of lanky men and women with exposed rib-cages, eagerly awaiting the call of death.
These images were and still are poignant and provocative and had a strong impact on its viewers at the time. It was published in 1943 as an illustrated report of the famine in a pamphlet called Hungry Bengal, in an effort to rouse nationalist sentiments. Owing to this, the British wanted to stifle this uprising, and they seized and burnt its copies. All but one survived, and it is now preserved in a bank vault in Kolkata.
An artist who became the voice of India’s suffering
A self-taught artist, Chittoprasad always wanted to study art but was denied admission into the prestigious Kala Bhavana of Shantiniketan and even the Government College of Art and Craft, due to his political affiliations. But, his passion for art was not ready to be doused. So, he shunned the traditional form of tempera paintings that were popularly practiced to glorify India’s spiritual past and instead delved into a style that was straight-forward and raw, depicting the present tragic reality in all its darkness.
Chittoprasad traveled the remotest parts of the state, from villages, hospitals, orphanages to make-shift camps, mirroring the drudgery of poor peasants and labourers and the evil face of poverty, in his black and white sketches. The skeletal faces, lined ribs and barren forests, his confident black strokes reflected the life around him-devoid of colour and joy.
And it was this nerve-wracking aspect that brought his paintings alive and shocked its viewers, waking them up and jerking them to be a part of the change.
Summarizing his extraordinary journey and body of work, Chittoprasad, in a biographical short-documentary, called Confession (1972) by Czech filmmaker Pavel Hobl) says, “To save people means to save art itself. The activity of an artist means the active denial of death.”
Despite repeated upheavals throughout his life, he continued to live by this ideal and constantly pushed boundaries of art to depict the ignored and forgotten stories of human history. It is because of that courage and passion for his art, that the memory of such struggle and rebellion is now forever immortalised in the pages of time.
Midway through climbing a 12-feet-high pole, Aarifa Bhinderwala, a Mumbai-based certified pole dancer and trainer, gracefully suspends herself upside down in a 180-degree split (also called the Dragon Tail) using her hands alone, to the tunes of O re Chorifrom Lagaan.
As the song continues, the 31-year-old beautifully transitions into a whirl with one-handed spins and pointed toes.
Watching Aarifa’s Instagram videos, you cannot help but marvel. It’s evident that what she is doing, requires her to carefully channel every bit of strength that she has, but her face shows no sign of the effort required for the task. It is relaxed; the moves delicate and executed to perfection.
This contrast is what she loves about pole dancing, and the reasons she believes that it is a perfect blend of art and sport.
“Besides being an absolutely blissful experience, pole dancing develops your full-body strength and endurance while allowing you to artistically express yourself through factors such as music and stage etiquette. It is a whole-body workout that helps develop strength, flexibility, endurance, stamina, control and balance. For me, this is the perfect blend of grit and grace which creates,a dream mid-air around an apparatus,” Aarifa tells The Better India.
Although she is miles away, it is easy to sense the child-like excitement on the phone as she speaks about her 6-year-old passion which is also her profession now.
Tracing The Roots of Pole Dancing
While Aarifa is deeply passionate about pole dancing, not everyone links it grace or spirituality, let alone think of it as a career. It is infamously synonymous with dubious bars or strip clubs.
Pole dancing’s roots can be supposedly traced to Mallkhamb, an Indian athletic sport where men bend their bodies and do stunts around a stationary pole, or even circus performances in China.
In the late 1800s, it was labelled as an ‘exotic international dance’ before it emerged as a sensual dance in strip clubs in the early 20th century. In the ’80s, pole dancing began to incorporate athletic moves, and in the ’90s a Canadian woman created the first pole training video to use in fitness exercises.
Over the last decade, it has evolved into an art form, and its popularity as a mainstream form of exercise across the globe is gradually increasing.
In fact, in October 2019, pole dancing was officially recognised as a sport by the Global Association of International Sports Federation, and it may become an Olympic sport as well.
Swirling Her Way Into An Unconventional Career
“I feel a natural affinity to this art and fitness form,” declares Aarifa before I complete my question about why she chose pole dancing.
However, the revelation that she has no background in any sport or acrobatics and that has never lifted weights comes as a surprise. “That’s the beauty about pole dancing; there are no prerequisites,” she chuckles.
Aarifa’s tryst with pole dancing began six years ago when she visited her sister in Perth, Australia. There, she came across a flyer about pole dance classes and decided to give it a try. There has been no looking back since.
‘‘I was so mesmerised by the gravity-defying tricks, strength, grace and flexibility of the trainers that I had to sign up for the course, even though I had no prior knowledge about it!”
What followed were the conditioning exercises on the pole and a lot of practice to master the moves. Turns out, dancing around an apparatus was way more challenging than Aarifa had anticipated.
Bruises and burns on underarms, palms, calves and legs due to friction with the stainless steel pole and sores from workouts became an everyday affair.
But, not once, did all such difficulties deter her. “The sense of freedom, positivity and empowerment I experienced after every class was such a high. When I did my first inversion (going upside down), I knew that it was no longer just a hobby. I wanted to do this for life,” she mentions.
For the next two years, Aarifa juggled between her Diploma in Counselling and the advanced-level course in Perth.
With each class, she mastered her moves, got stronger, more flexible and developed more control, balance and stamina. She even managed to execute incredibly advanced moves like the ‘Dragon Tail.’
“It took me weeks to learn this move; it involves a lot of strength in your back, shoulders and your core. That was certainly a milestone,” says Aarifa.
She completed her course from the ‘She Moves’ studio and went on to get training from other places in Tasmania, Sydney and Spain. When she returned to Mumbai in 2016, the first thing she did at home was to set up a pole to practice routines.
“I am incredibly grateful to my sister and parents who supported me unconditionally. My mother was the one who encouraged me to build a set up at home. So, I started my first ever business venture from my home studio,” she says.
Shedding Inhibitions & Gender Norms
At ‘Pole Burnt’, Aarifa’s Juhu studio, the classes are an amalgamation of fluid movement and hardcore exercise.
“Every week, I teach around 60 students with 8 new entries. My oldest students have finished Series (level) 5 and are starting with Series 6. As my students progress, I will add more levels.”
Aarifa started her classes with just four students, and within a month she was flooded with calls from Mumbaikars who wanted to join in.
She also gained social media fame after she appeared on ‘The Creative Indians,’ a Netflix show.
She eventually shifted to a studio, and today her classes are a hit! Over the last four years, she has taught approximately 10,000 students from all age groups (the oldest student is a 50-year-old!), body types and fitness levels.
For Aarifa, teaching this art form is profoundly gratifying not only because she helps people improve their fitness levels, but it also helped many women from varied backgrounds shed their body-related insecurities.
Many of her students have shared how they regained their confidence and self-esteem.
“Skin contact is very essential to be able to grip the pole and execute most moves on it. I’ve also witnessed so many women embrace their bodies in the whole process, because of all the challenges that their bodies have had to overcome to achieve various gravity-defying tricks on the pole bringing in a renewed sense of self-confidence. All shapes and sizes are beautiful,” she shares
Sayunkta, her student, echoes her trainer’s words. “I joined the class two years ago to get fit. I faced no backlash of any kind. When I uploaded my routine on social media, all I received was appreciation and positive feedback. Pole dancing has taught me that there is no bigger barrier than our own mind. I feel like a queen every time I climb on the pole,” she asserts.
Kabir Jain, another student, believes pole dancing has contributed to his personal growth while also keeping him fit. “It takes time to master a move and make it look easy. While having patience and perseverance is critical, it is equally important to have fun while exploring new steps.”
Apart from helping women explore their potential and get stronger, she is also breaking stereotypes with men like Kabir.
“As the word spread, there were inquiries from boys as well to learn pole, and I was happy to help! Why should any craft have a gender barrier? I now run co-ed classes as well. It is beautiful to see the healthy competition between boys and girls.”
Aarifa never thought that pole dancing was something that would pursue professionally and yet here she is helping people identify and unleash their strengths in more ways than one. So, when I ask her if pole dancing has changed her life in any way, there is a pause, before she speaks.
“My brand name ‘Pole Burnt’ signifies the transformative quality of letting one’s strengths shine through like a rising phoenix. Teaching pole is a very grounding and gratifying experience for me. There is a sense of community when people from different walks of life come together to share their struggles and celebrate their victories on the pole.”
With people like Aarifa taking the charge to bring unconventional professions to the mainstream, it is inevitable that years of societal conditioning and norms are slowly coming undone. And that is always a good thing.
You can follow Aarifa’s epic journey of pole dancing here.
This is a question I am often asked. My response is constant: Theatre completes an education. Even better, theatre is a complete education in itself.
Theatre is a vehicle that enables a child to discover innate talents and express their unsaid feelings without any inhibitions.
My belief in theatre-based training began when I had my daughter go through it. It was done to help her open up and to discover hidden abilities. The results were amazing. At the tender age of five, my daughter walked the stage as the Master of Ceremony at the annual day of her school, HeadStart Educational Academy!
So strongly was I convinced that I got into it myself, resulting in the birth of ‘Theatre Dots’ in 2012 to help lots of kids be confident and happy!
Training for over ten years now, I find myself agreeing with Albert Einstein, who famously said – “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
True. Every child needs imagination to grow creatively, and theatre is a great stimulus for that. Moreover, theatre goes beyond that as well. Be it performing a simple role-play or a character in front of an audience, theatre helps kids overcome stage fright, speak up in case they are reserved or express themselves positively if they are outspoken.
To many children, theatre has been a saviour in terms of finding an audience and an outlet for unhindered expression. Additionally, since drama focuses on communication as a whole, and performance cannot be effective unless we can engage our audience, theatre helps in building fearless, articulate and brilliant orators.
As a proactive, engaging medium, theatre helps everyone – kids and even adults – express their ideas confidently. This is why corporates too are now taking to theatre-based training for various employee engagement programmes. Training in theatre doesn’t just build great communicators but also instils life skills like creativity, empathy, teamwork, cooperation, concentration, listening, and cultural conglomeration.
Having trained over a thousand kids, I recommend that every parent enrol their kids for fun drama classes and see the little ones evolve into confident and happy individuals. Most importantly, it helps one be confident.
A few weeks ago, I watched ‘Bulbul Can Sing’, a coming-of-age film directed by Rima Das, about three teenage friends—Bulbul, Bonnie and Suman—and how they navigate love, life, friendship, questions of their sexual identity and an overbearing society.
Akin to her previous work ‘Village Rockstars’, which won the National Award for Best Film and became India’s official entry for the Oscars in 2018, ‘Bulbul Can Sing’ is rooted in the daily rhythms of rural life, and is an incredibly heartfelt and spell-binding take of what it means to grow up.
My favourite sequence comes at the very end when Bulbul and Bonnie’s mother, who is grieving her daughter’s suicide, are alone together on the banks of the Brahmaputra, as the sun sets and its rays pierce through the darkened clouds gathered above them.
Seeing Bulbul despondent, Bonnie’s mother says, “Don’t worry. If you listen to people, your life will be ruined. Do what your heart says.”
What follows is the appearance of a beautiful rainbow.
Speaking to The Better India, Rima (38) describes the process of filming this sequence.
“The place is about 15 km from Chhaygaon, my native village. It was a miracle that this scene even happened. It was a sunny day when we reached there, but soon after, it became very windy and cloudy, and we thought it was going to rain. But the weather changed, and magically a rainbow appeared. Nature came to our rescue,” she says.
This sequence encapsulates nearly everything I love about Village Rockstars, and Bulbul Can Sing.
In both films, the camera beautifully captures the bucolic landscape of rural Assam. There are lingering shots of ponds, trees, leaves, grass, paddy fields, the sunshine sparkling through the clouds, village homes and evocative close-up shots of people who inhabit this picturesque land.
“There is no storyboard, and through these shots, I was simply observing life,” she says rather nonchalantly.
However, what augments the aesthetics of these shots is the emotion it expresses—hope. After a series of tragedies induced by an overbearing society through the second half of the film that ravages the life of the main protagonists, what we witness is the defiance of two women worst affected—Bulbul and Bonnie’s mother.
Despite losing her child thanks to the fallout of another incident that involved Bulbul, both characters are brought together by love, empathy and finally defiance when Bonnie’s mother says, “Do what your heart says.”
The appearance of a rainbow right after that dialogue reaffirms that hope.
Poster for Bulbul Can Sing. You can now watch the film on Netflix. (Image Courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
Hope is also an ever-present theme in Village Rockstars, which centres on 10-year-old Dhunu harbouring dreams of starting a rock band with her friends despite living in poverty.
While we see Dhunu fashioning a guitar out of waste styrofoam in the early sequences of the movie, it closes with her strumming an actual acoustic guitar that her mother has gifted her, out under a setting sun on the paddy field. Surrounding Dhunu are her friends who can’t hide their joy.
Village Rockstars Poster. You can now watch the film on Netflix. (Image courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
Hope & Bridging The Generational Gap
In Bulbul Can Sing, what I found was a story-telling process that was quiet, restrained and gentle. The first half is free-flowing because that’s how life is, according to Rima.
“When you’re free, everything is beautiful. But in the second half, society enters their lives through a moral police squad and villagers who deem Bulbul and Bonnie’s budding romance with their lovers as ‘immoral’, and suddenly their life changes. That’s why the first half of the film is full of life, and suddenly it changes track in the second half because it’s not about what these young people believe, but what other people in society think and how they impose their thoughts,” says Rima.
In some ways, she admits that it is a reflection of what she observed while growing up in school, college and in her personal life.
“I had initially intended for Bulbul Can Sing to be a love story. But this changed because of an incident I had heard about in a nearby school where three girls were rusticated. I realized nothing much had changed from the time I had grown up with respect to moral policing except now that they have an additional instrument in the form of social media. When I saw the video of them (the girls) being shared on WhatsApp groups, I felt a deep sense of sadness. That’s when I changed the story of Bulbul,” she recalls.
I was initially unsure about Suman’s character, but once the narrative changed, his character developed. He is the only one among the cast who is that way in real life. His family treats him as a boy, but he suffers taunts from people in the village and school for embracing his feminine side.
Similarly, Dhunu in Village Rockstars also subverts gendered expectations and norms by playing with boys her age and climbing trees. Despite taunts from others in the village which her mother wards off, her spirit remains unencumbered.
“There is definitely a gap between young people and adults, which is increasing. The older generation needs to understand how the young see their world, and young people must understand how the older generation thinks. Although I do have a viewpoint, at no point am I trying to put too much of myself and message out there, but leave it open to the audience to find their meaning in my work,” she says.
I was struck by how hope in both films seemingly rests in the hands of women or in the case of Bulbul Can Sing also in men embracing their feminine side.
Shillong-based filmmaker Dominic Sangma, whose second feature film ‘Rapture’ made its way to Cannes last year, feels the same way.
“When I watched Village Rockstars, I was completely blown away by her style. Rima Das is an important voice not only from the Northeast but India as well. As a filmmaker, her natural ability to observe life and capture its fine nuances on screen is remarkable. She innately seems to understand how people react to certain situations in life and manages to recreate it on-screen perfectly,” he says.
Her films capture the daily rhythms of rural life. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
Employing non-actors to evoke life on screen
Both films heavily employ first-time actors on screen. In Village Rockstars, the cast is entirely made up of non-actors from her native village of Chhaygaon in Assam’s Kamrup district, including Dhunu, who is Rima’s cousin.
Similarly, Bulbul Can Sing also introduces three new faces on screen—Arnali Das as Bulbul, Banita Thakuriya as Bonnie and Manoranjan Das as Suman.
Except for Pakija Begum, who plays Bonnie’s mother, the entire cast comprises non-professional actors.
“It’s remarkable how she handles non-actors and brings such powerful performances out of them. As a filmmaker, you need to create a certain environment around your set to evoke such performances on screen. This is something I want to learn from her. Despite its simplicity, there is also an element of genius in how she writes for a film. It’s not easy for the non-seasoned actors to articulate, but the dialogues just flow so seamlessly. The best part of Rima’s films is that nothing seems written on a piece of paper or contrived or set to a script. The words just reveal themselves on screen,” says Dominic.
Working with children and non-seasoned actors. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
When I asked Rima how she selects her cast, she said that it is a very spontaneous, authentic and organic process.
“Sometimes, I just went with my gut feeling and instinct to cast all the characters. For both films, I did not take any auditions. In essence, this was an exploratory journey. It was not at all a stressful process. They were just there, and all I needed to do was recognize them,” she informs.
Rima has had significant acting experience in the past. Unable to relate to certain scripts, she would feel stuck performing them. That’s why, during her filmmaking process, she tries to make her actors comfortable, confident and give them easy lines to perform.
“When I write dialogues, I say them aloud to myself, emote, and understand whether these lines are easy to articulate or not. For both films, the only crew member I had was my cousin Mallika Das, and so we had enough time. My films didn’t have regular shoots, where things had to be done on a specific deadline or in a hurry. If I am telling a story of children or teenagers, you have to know them well. You cannot make something superficial,” she says.
She also notes that working with non-seasoned actors gives her greater freedom as a filmmaker. In her first feature film Antardrishti (Man With The Binoculars’), she worked with seasoned and professional actors.
“See, there are different limitations and strengths of working with seasoned and first-time actors as well. But it wasn’t a conscious decision to cast non-actors in my films. It was a spontaneous process. When I made my first short film working with non-actors in 2009, I knew nothing about anything as a filmmaker. I hadn’t even seen a close reel camera or even touched it before. When I met children in my village, I just started and didn’t approach them as actors or non-actors. But for films like Village Rockstars, it was also intentional in a way because I knew that making it would take time. I needed that liberty as a filmmaker. If you cast professional actors, they have other projects, limited time and so on. No such limitations working with non-actors in my village,” informs Rima.
With Bulbul Can Sing as well, it was not a deliberate move to cast non-actors except Pakija Begum. Despite limited screen time, Pakija was brought in to play this role because Rima needed an actor that she could push to express certain difficult emotions.
“I could not pick someone from my village and push them. With seasoned actors, they know tricks of the trade and can work towards those emotions at a personal level. I wanted an actor with depth. For example, that scene with Bonnie’s mother and Bulbul, I wanted someone who had experienced life and said those lines with conviction. With non-actors, I have to put in a lot of effort,” she says.
Nonetheless, shooting Bulbul Can Sing was difficult because of the massive success that came with Village Rockstars. She had started shooting the film towards the end of shooting Village Rockstars. Before the latter premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and exploded on the international scene, she had already started shooting Bulbul Can Sing.
Moreover, both films were primarily shot in Chhaygaon, and it was a challenge to ensure both films didn’t look similar. Although for Bulbul Can Sing, she did some shooting in nearby villages, ‘80 per cent’ of it was done in the same location where Village Rockstars happened.
Last year, Rima Das made her appearance as a panelist at the ‘India Pavilion’ of the Cannes film festival. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
A Self-Taught Filmmaker Who Is Changing The Game
How she managed to elicit such brilliant performances out of first-time actors has a lot to do with her incredible journey into filmmaking. Growing up in Chhaygaon, Rima harboured dreams of becoming an actor.
Despite clearing her National Eligibility Test (NET) after her Masters in Sociology at Pune University, she moved to Mumbai during the early 2000s to pursue that dream.
The dream was big, but even reaching a casting director was a lot of trouble, particularly without the internet. She recalls being innocent and naive about the business of filmmaking in Mumbai.
“During school and college in Assam, I did very well as an actor. When I ended up in Mumbai, however, I missed that spontaneity and fear began to rule me. I did some acting workshops in Mumbai and some theatre too, but through the process, I remember thinking to myself, I used to be a good actor. How did I become so conscious of myself?” she recalls.
Till 2013, Rima was one among many struggling actors in Mumbai. She was offered bit roles, but they were so inconsequential that she couldn’t even recall them herself. The dream of becoming a film star was beyond reach.
“I realized that it was hard to get roles. Instead of seeking them out, I decided to make my own movies and act in them as well. That was my plan. But when I made my first feature film Antardrishti (Man With The Binoculars), which was shot with a Canon DSLR camera in Kalardiya near Chhaygaon, it was so difficult to do both. I wasn’t happy at all with the results. I believe my film suffered because I wanted to act in it myself. I couldn’t completely focus on both aspects working with a very small crew. Until my first film, acting was a priority, but then my focus shifted completely towards making films,” she recalls.
Direction was easier for Rima because she had bought a camera, which she calls “my weapon,” and didn’t have to depend on anyone to make her movies.
“Rima has also completely changed the way we look at filmmaking as well. I’m a film school graduate, and we are trained to look at it like a collaborative process—we depend on others to fulfil certain aspects like editing, costume designing, screenwriting and producing. But she does everything from writing the script to directing, camera work and costume designing to editing all by herself. She has made filmmaking such a personal endeavour,” says Dominic.
The process of making a film is a deeply personal endeavour. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
Rima says that this is because she did not know how to separate each of these roles or that she needed to hire someone different to manage each of these tasks.
“As I did not go to a film school, I saw making films as a whole. It was not like I shouldn’t do casting, writing screenplays, doing camera work, editing or doing art direction. I didn’t see making movies like it. When I watched films, I saw all these elements coming together to create one overall experience,” she says.
Fortunately, her first film, Antardrishti, was very well received on the international film festival circuit with screenings at the Mumbai Film Festival and the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia in 2016, besides winning a couple of state awards. What this initial success did was give her hope that she was going in the right direction.
“With Antardrishti, I had to hurry things because of the limited budget, small crew and financial circumstances. However, with films like Village Rockstars, I had the liberty that I didn’t have earlier. Sometimes, I would be on location, and there was no shooting because certain things weren’t happening. So, the process of casting and the close bond I established with the actors in a deeply personal work helped me. These films are a reflection of myself,” she says.
It took her three years to make Village Rockstars—she started shooting in 2014, and the film premiered in 2017. Shooting for Bulbul Can Sing began in 2017. In three years, she premiered Man With The Binoculars (2016), Village Rockstars (2017) and Bulbul Can Sing (2018).
Her films are travelling the world on the film festival circuit. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
Influences & Acclaim
“When I watched Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali in 2007, it made me believe that this is how you can also make movies. Growing up, making films didn’t feel like a realistic objective since I had known commercial cinema to be too big and expensive with massive budgets. I never thought I would make movies and it wasn’t a realistic dream for me,” she says.
But watching films by the likes of Ray, Federico Fellini, Majid Majidi, Ingrid Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky and Wong Kar Wai, amongst others, helped her realize that she can one day go back to her village and make films steeped in realism; and that they need not necessarily have dance sequences, songs, or a big budget.
Influenced by such auteurs, it’s no surprise that her films have a non-linear plot.
“As I grew up, I stopped enjoying linear films, where I know where the story is leading me. I like non-linear films that surprise you,” she says.
And who would have thought that one day, films with non-linear storylines, shot in rural Assam by a self-taught filmmaker could take Indian cinema to the world?
“We don’t make films for ourselves. We need an audience to watch them and connect with us. It’s the ultimate goal for any filmmaker. I saw a Rima before Village Rockstars, who was also unsure about herself and her work. But great films will find their way to a large audience and people will accept it commercially as well. She even broke away from the norms of approaching sales agents, distribution and did it all by herself. People today want to watch her films after Village Rockstars because she has become a global name,” says Dominic.
She recalls dealing with all the praise that came with her films. “It was madness,” she says, recalling the innumerable interviews, award functions, film festivals, and speaking events, particularly in her home state after Village Rockstars, which became the first Assamese film to win the National Award for Best Feature Film in 30 years.
It has been a remarkable personal journey for Rima Das. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
“My phone is still like a public telephone, but I cannot switch it off or change numbers because these films are my babies. I need to take care of them,” she laughs.
But she also acknowledges what the global acclaim has done for her.
“Whoever survives, they are heroes. Hope is what keeps us moving forward. In my life, I have gone through many hardships, and I consider myself a survivor. That’s why Bulbul Can Sing is also a metaphor. Although Bonnie was a better singer, Bulbul sings her life song because she survived with whatever happened. My work is a reflection of life. I remember in difficult times, when I thought there was nothing left in my life, only songs, movies and books helped me overcome my troubles. For anyone who watches my films, I hope some moments can help and motivate them, but more importantly, make them feel something. It’s not that I want to send a definitive message, but I want people to look forward to life,” she says.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
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In the cramped bylanes of Rampurhat in West Bengal resides Kalam Patua, one of the last few remaining exponents of Kalighat painting, which draws on conventions from West Bengal scrolls and Indian miniature painting.
While the 58-year-old is a postmaster by day, by night, he silently strives to reinvent the lost art of Kalighat by giving it a contemporary twist.
Kalam’s artistic sensibilities were spotted by his uncle, Baidyanath Patua, and he learnt to draw and paint in the ancient patachitra scroll style at the age of ten under his watchful guidance. As he grew older, he became intrigued by and subsequently, taught himself the Kalighat style of painting.
Kalam Patua
Kalighat painting developed in the mid-19th century in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). While it started with the illustrations of Hindu gods and goddesses, it eventually transcended into illustrating the lives of urban dwellers.
“I grew up making 13th-century patachitra or cloth paintings that depict the rural way of life in traditional folktales, mythologies. However, the Kalighat patachitra is a medium of urban satire that brings to light socially relevant issues which started disappearing with the advent of printed pictures and calendars,” Kalam tells The Better India.
Recreating 19th-century style of Kalighat paintings
Even though Kalam’s talent was obvious, his parents insisted on getting a stable job as the ancient craft was slowly dying. So, he completed schooling in 1981 and joined the local post office as a postman.
This was around the same time when he learnt that only a handful of artists possessed this unique technique, and took it upon himself to do something for the vibrant and beautiful art form.
Kalam started participating in state-level painting competitions and workshops to get in touch with like-minded artists and work towards preserving this style. In 1987, he won the third prize in a painting competition in Medinipur. He worked his way up for the next couple of years and went on to win several competitions.
In the last few decades, thanks to his practice and utmost dedication, he has established himself at the forefront of contemporary Kalighat painters.
Kalam at a Kalighat painting workshop. Source: Surender Sejwal/Facebook
His work has been exhibited extensively in national and international museums including the National Museum at Liverpool, the Museum of Civilization in Canada and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
He also receives regular invitations from fine art institutions, and collaborate with several government departments to organise workshops.
Kalam’s paintings (mostly on paper) have subtle use of colours and are infused with tension, unease and shades of humour, making everyday mundane life fascinating.
From drawing a couple watching the 9/11 tragedy on television to a middle-aged man admiring a skimpily-clad mannequin, Kalam’s themes incorporate socio-political tales including consumerism, dowry, feminism, communal harmony, historical revolutions and sexuality.
Kalam creates the same art that his ancestors practised for over 300 years, but because of the twist he imparts to them, he has gone beyond the pull of lineage to create art which is entirely his own.
Here is a look at some of his Kalighat paintings.
9/11: The breakfast. Kalam’s first attempt on 2/3 ft acrylic canvasIntolerance
Photography at India GateMungeshi templeThe arrival of Vasco Da GamaOpeningGanga KinareBeyond ReachBabu, copy of old KalighatRomance at post officeHoli at Vrindavan
With The Positive Collective, The Better India’s COVID-19 coverage is available to regional language publications for free. Write to editorial@thebetterindia.com for more details.
Designers are in the business of adorning people. They have been doing this for ages. Some do it quietly from their homes, weaving while sitting on their pit looms, frame looms, semi-automatic looms or from the weaver’s society office sheds.
But with the lockdown due to COVID-19, there are no ‘swish-swoosh’ sounds of the looms, as the weavers, and allied workers, are all at home and staring at an uncertain future.
“Following the CAA agitation In December, even though we didn’t have work, we could at least go to the thick woods close to our villages, forage for fruits and vegetables to cook as an accompaniment with the rice to feed our families. Before we could come out of that episode, the lockdown started. Now, we can neither go to the forest to get food nor to the banks to get cash. We are worried about feeding our children,” says an agitated Banylla Syngkli. She is president of 32 weaver members’ Krihlang Handloom and Handicraft Co-operative Society of Umtngam village, near Shillong, Meghalaya.
Banylla and her team aren’t alone. India has a vast handloom sector employing some 43.31 lakh weavers. It’s the second-largest employment sector after agriculture. Until the 2011 census, this sector employed more than 63 lakh people, nearly 87 per cent of whom reside in villages, with women forming around 77 per cent of the workforce, hardly making Rs 50 a day.
Weavers of North Karnataka associated with Metaphor Racha
As the sector doesn’t fall into the essential services category, their plight doesn’t attract media coverage. Even in the current pandemic, the hardship of farmers, daily wagers, construction workers gets media attention but not the predicament of the handloom sector. Because of this, they are mostly dependent on the Master craftsmen who hire them on a contract basis, the weaver’s cluster societies employing them or the fashion designers who use natural handloom fabric.
Janessaline Pyngropen, business head of DSEFH (Daniel Syiem’s Ethnic Fashion House), Shillong, Meghalaya, says, “An Advantage for weavers in the north-east region is that they all have been working on their looms from home for generations. So the social distancing norms in these times don’t affect them. The main problem we are facing since the CAA agitation is drying up of demands, so we are unable to place orders to them for hand spun and hand woven Eri silk fabric which Daniel uses for his creations.”
Many business heads like Janessaline and fashion designers from other parts of India are finding ways to keep their workforce in good spirits. They interact through phones to counsel and discuss health issues with their weavers, karigars, and other allied workers. And whenever possible, transferring some money to the employees’ accounts.
Weavers of North Karnataka associated with Metaphor Racha
Mumbai-based fashion designer Anavila Misra of brand Anavila, who works mostly with linen weavers, says, “A majority of our artisans and weavers work from home and live in remote villages of West Bengal, Jharkhand, and Gujarat. They are following all the guidelines laid down by the government and continue to work as before. Most of them have their bank accounts, and in instances where they don’t, we pay them through master weavers and group leaders.”
Ravi Kiran of Bengaluru-based Metaphor Racha, an organisation working with khadi institutes in north Karnataka, says that they are in touch with workers of different khadi units. “Since many of them have post office accounts, we have sent the minimum amounts to the weavers and spinners. Tailors working here in Bengaluru, despite a reduction in work, are getting paid regularly, but they have taken a 25 per cent cut in their salaries. They all prefer to work and earn and not ask for ‘help’. But getting work during this time is a problem.”
Designer Shalini James of brand Mantra from Kochi, who works with 90 weavers, karigars and tailors, sent most of them back to their homes in villages of West Bengal, Bihar, and Kerala in mid-March, telling them to return when things get better. So did Mumbai-based designer Vaishali Shadangule of brand Vaishali S who has 40 karigars from different parts of the country.
Shalini James from Kochi and her team
Shalini says, “Except for six, all others left, and we paid them an interim salary. Their needs are few. Their small fields in remote villages yield enough food grains. They live in joint families. Whenever we call them, they confirm that they are okay, but that they want to get back as they prefer to work rather than sit idle.”
Those six workers who stayed, live close to Shalini’s workplace, helping her meet an order of 3,000 reusable face masks for police personnel of Kerala. Strictly maintaining the social distancing orders, these workers are happy that they have work.
Ajitha Suresh, president of Cherai Handloom Weavers Co-operative Society number 648 in Kerala, speaks about how they are helping their weavers in these tough times. “We are paying salaries to home weavers who have looms, who can work from home. We can’t pay wages to weavers who don’t have home looms and who, because of social distancing, can’t come to work on the society’s looms. So a common decision is being made by all weaving societies in Paravur to compensate them.”
Shalini’s team making masks
She adds, “As it was the time of the Vishu festival, every weaver was paid Rs 2,000 in advance, plus Rs 1,000 was credited as kshemanidhi.”
Another designer, Sreejith of Rouka brand from Kochi, says, “We work with Care4Chendamangalam which is actively helping these societies. At this moment, everything has slowed down. We are constantly ensuring that everyone is safe and their societies keep them informed. Besides, the government system in Kerala has helped every worker.”
If most designers are doing their best to support their workers, what is the cause for worry? “We need to counsel them and reassure them that their jobs will be intact when they return. I speak to at least two workers each day and reassure them,” says Ravi.
Moreover, several designers have already started thinking of post-pandemic times. They feel that most apparel factories may close because buyers are cancelling orders for July/August. They are even stalling payments that are due. In such a situation, paying salaries will become difficult in all factories.
Anavila concludes, “The slump in sales will lead to a staggered production eventually, but I do think that in the mid-term, more people will come back to handwoven, sustainable brands/products, which is how we will bounce back from this crisis sooner. This, in turn, will be very good for the artisans and weavers’ clusters.”
With The Positive Collective, The Better India’s COVID-19 coverage is available to regional language publications for free. Write to editorial@thebetterindia.com for more details.
Every time Baua Devi looks out of her house tucked away in Delhi’s narrow lanes, she cannot help but mentally paint a scene straight out of the epic, Ramayana.
The Ashoka tree (Saraca asoca) outside her balcony reminds her of the famous image where Sita sat under the tree in Ravana’s Lanka, awaiting Lord Rama.
“I wish I could paint my wall. I would infuse all the bright colours, and this would be my ode to the century-old art form of Madhubani,” Devi, a renowned artist, tells The Better India.
Although ageing has caused the 78-year-old to cut down on her most favourite thing in the world–painting–her zest for the art form has not reduced one bit.
Devi, who was born in Bihar’s Jitwapur village, stepped into the world of Madhubani through an age-old tradition when she was barely 13. As per the traditional folklore and culture heritage of Bihar’s Mithila, every mother passes on the teachings of Madhubani to her daughter.
Devi recieves Padma Shri from former President Pranab Mukherjee
“According to the custom, all the women in the village gather during a wedding or a special occasion to draw complex geometric and linear patterns on the walls of the house. The art would usually be scenes from mythology and nature as symbols of love and prosperity. This was till the 70s. Then, people started practising Madhubani on paper and canvases,” Devi, a Padma Shri awardee, explains.
Devi’s talent was recognised during the 1960s famine in Bihar; she was in her teens. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi felt that the eye-catching paintings could be used to create livelihoods in the wake of troubled times.
Devi was one of the pioneering talented artists hand-picked by the team of PM Gandhi to transfer her mud paintings on to paper.
“My first commercial painting fetched 50 paise when I was working with the National Crafts Museum. There has been no looking back since. Over the years, my paintings have travelled to several countries, including Spain, Germany, Japan and France,” she says.
Interestingly, one of her recent paintings was sold at a whopping price of Rs 50,000!
Devi has a peculiar style of painting that ranges from small sheets to canvases as big as 10 feet. Despite modern techniques, she chooses to paint with twigs, matchsticks, nib-pens, and fingers.
“No amount of paintbrushes or colours can ever match the traditional style. Only natural dyes were used, like black came from charcoal, yellow from turmeric, white from rice, blue from indigo, saffron from marigold, an approach which maintains the authenticity,” she adds.
Most of Devi’s paintings circulate mythological narratives of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, Gods like Krishna, Kali, Durga, and animals and nature. However, her all-time favourite paintings are those where she depicts Sita’s perspective.
When asked which is her favourite painting, she refuses to pick one, “How can I choose between my babies? All my paintings are amalgamations of customs, history, and love. Madhubani is my identity, so choosing one would be unfair.”
