Bead Necklace

The location of these Patachitra Shilpi or artists falls in a place, popularly known as Jangal Mahal in West Bengal. The area is home to a number of indigenous tribes like Santhals, Vills, Mundas. The paintings, for obvious reasons, depict the tribal culture. One such example by Nazra Chitrakar, who learnt the art from her older generations and is now passing it on to her successors. This one depicts the daily life and chores of the tribal people where the men are sleeping while the women are fetching water. 

This painting, by Bahadur Chitrakar, is a scene from the Manasa Mangal, also known as Padmapuran, a folk lore based on Hindu mythology. The deity of snakes, Devi Manasa is one of the protagonists of the story who compels Chand Saudagar, a rich businessman, to worship her by hook or crook. Chand was a worshipper of Shiva and he would never want to pay homage to Manasa. To fulfil her desire, Manasa sends her snakes to bite Chand’s son Lakhindar to death. Behula, the wife of Lakhindar, takes all the pain to make piece between Manasa and Chand, and subsequently gets back her husband to life. 

A couple gets intimate and romantic while spending time together. As a part of a story telling about the regular, day to day life, this piece of art makes for a sweet romantic tale. Such paintings, accompanied by songs, in olden days of no television serials, would serve the purpose of entertainment to the village women. They would listen to the stories sung by the Pata Shilpis and laugh and cry, and become one with the characters. This one is done by a young artist Rajesh Chitrakar.