Madhubani painter seeks support to keep traditional art form alive

BENGALURU: Ashok Kumar Das has invited Bengalureans to visit his village Madhubani, in Bihar, to experience the magic of folk art and help keep it alive. As a third-generation Madhubani-style painter, he travels from one city to another carrying 100-150 of his delicate artworks and looking for customers.
At Madhubani, this art form originated with characteristic geometric patterns, symmetry, big winged eyes of painted figures, and vibrant colour schemes.Das learnt it from his grandmother Jagdamba Devi, who in 1975 became the first person to be awarded the Padma Shri for Madhubani-style painting.
“My family of seven and I painted all of them, come and see us,” Das said while pointing to the mass of paintings hung on the cotton walls of his makeshift shop. He is participating in the India Art Festival, which will be on at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath in the city till Sunday.
Every aspect of Madhubani painting is handmade and natural. The paper is prepared from cotton waste while the colours are organic. “The colours are made using materials such as turmeric, peepal, kohl, and flower juice,” he explained to a group of window shoppers. The 58-year-old said he gets a lot of business in Bengaluru, which has a significant market for folk paintings, but language is a barrier for him.
He has been painting for the past 25 years and dates the origin of the art form to Ramayana. “When Rama and Sita returned from Lanka, people from Mithila adorned the walls of their houses with such paintings to welcome them. The village of Madhubani is part of the Mithila region of Bihar where Sita is said to have been born,” he said. “This is neither fine nor contemporary art. It is purely folk and most of the paintings represent Rama and Sita.”
It takes between three and 12 days to complete a Madhubani painting, depending on the intricacy of work. The artist complained about how new businesses have been picking up designs from traditional painters and screen printing them on clothing items to cash in on tags of ‘authentic’, ‘handmade’ and ‘crafty’.
“We paint using matchsticks and earbuds. It is back-breaking work and requires a lot of visual focus. It is very harmful to artists like me when people take our gifts for free and exploit them,” he said. Das earns Rs 2-3 lakh a year from selling his paintings at exhibitions and functions.
“We have 25 families in our village and each one earns a livelihood through Madhubani paintings,” he said.