Madhubani


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Madhubani
is a town and municipality in Mahdubani district in the Indian state of Bihar.
It lies about 26 kilometers or 15 miles northeast of Darbhanga town. Prior to
independence of India this region belonged to Darbhanga Raj, the largest
Zamindari (landlordship) of India. It is about 190 kilometers or 118
miles from Patna, where the nearest airport is located. Madhubani is about 125
kilometers or 78 miles from Vaishali. Vaishali is about 65 kilometers or 40
miles from Patna. Madhubani literally means a Forest of honey. Madhubani
is the cultural heart of Mithilanchal, the region where Maithili
Bhasha or language is spoken. Madhubani is the birthplace of many famous
literary people (authors and poets) as well as the home to Madhubani paintings.
The whole eastern region of India comprising of Bihar, Bengal and Orissa
celebrates the festivals of Goddess Durga and Saraswati. On the
road from Patna to Madhubani one can see many open air studios of the sculptors
who make statues with straw base covered with clay. The heads of the statues are
made separately and placed on the body once both parts are complete. Finally
just before the festivals the statues are painted. In January 2009, Joan and I
stopped at the Lalitpur village where we saw Suresh Pundit making Saraswati
Statues. His 12 year old son, Dilip Kumar, was assisting him in his open air
workshop.
It is
locally believed that Madhubani painting tradition started when Raja Janak
commissioned local artists to paint murals in his palace in preparations for the
marriage of his daughter Sita to Lord Ram. The paintings were originally done on
cow dung and mud coated walls. The Kohbar Ghar or the nuptial chamber was
the room in which the paintings were traditionally done. Originally the
paintings depicted an assembly of symbolic images of the lotus plant, the bamboo
grove, fishes, birds and snakes in union. These images represented fertility and
proliferation of life. There used to be a tradition that the newly married bride
and groom would spend three nights in the Kohbar Ghar without cohabiting. On the
fourth night they would consummate the marriage surrounded with colorful
painting. The Mithila paintings were done only by ladies of the house, village
and caste and only on occasion of marriages. In most of Mithila region the
tradition did not survive to the modern times but in villages in Madhubani area,
the painting tradition is still alive and evolving. Around 1960s for the first
time the paintings were done on paper. This change of background gave
flexibility and the women could now innovate to add mythological tales from
Hindu epics as their motifs in the paintings. They also used scenes from
pilgrimage centers which they visited. One of the earliest pioneers of Mithila
paintings on paper was Ganga Devi. She painted until her death in 1991 and her
works are in collections of local and foreign art collectors. She had a very
turbulent life in which she was repeatedly humiliated by her husband and her
in-laws. Her husband married a second wife and he along with his new wife robbed
Ganga Devi of the few meager possessions that she had in her in-law’s family.
Later in life she suffered from breast cancer that she fought valiantly and
survived the deadly illness with sheer will power and strict adherence to the
long and painful medical treatment. Joan and I visited the home of Ganga Devi
in Rashidpur village. None of her descendents paint any more. Her in-laws
family never liked that she painted. She never taught any one in her husband’s
family to paint. She wanted at one point to will her entire life savings to the
son of the second wife of her husband but after an incident in which the
husband’s family hit her scull so bad that she had to be treated in intensive
care unit, she decided to will her fortunes to her brother’s family. One of her
major art creations is preserved in the Craft Museum in New Delhi where she
painted an entire Kohbar Ghar. Nearby the home of Ganga Devi we visited the home
of Manju Devi. Unfortunately she was away in town to attend an art class. In her
absence her sisters sold us a painting done by Manju Devi. In the same village
we visited the home of Lila Devi where we saw some of her latest art work.
In modern
times only the villages of lower caste folk have painting on the walls of their
houses. In the upper caste (Brahman) villages one does not come across many
painted walls. Joan and I visited Jitwarpur village next to view the
Dussadha Caste village. They do Godhna or tatoo art on paper. This is
also a lower caste village. We were invited in the home of Lalita Devi, a middle
aged, paralyzed artist, who was working on a large painting at the time. In the
same village we visited the home of Urmila Devi and purchased one painting. The
more famous artist, Channo Devi, was ill but her husband, Randi Paswan, showed
us her art work including a huge mural painting on a scroll of about 5 x 20
feet. Joan took many photographs of these Madhubani female artists and their art
works.
In Mangroni
village we visited the house of upper caste artist, Rambharos Jha where we
purchased 3 small art pieces done by him. His sister Amrita Jha also paints and
showed us her art work.
Our guide
in this tour of Madhubani villages was Ishu and he took us in the evening to his
house to meet his uncle, Santosh, who is an alumnus of the National Institute of
Design in Ahmedabad. He showed us a big collection of his art work and was kind
enough to let Joan take photographs of some of his major art series. His latest
series of paintings were on Godhra riots in Gujarat. It was Makar Sankranti
festival day. Ishu and his uncle, Santosh, invited us to a delicious dinner in
their home and offered sesame seed Laddoos, a typical desert for the
Sankranti festival.
Unlike many
other traditional folk arts, the Mithila art work in Madhubani region has
evolved with time and is still developing and blossoming. The artists in remote
villages are spending their life savings for getting the latest education in art
at prominent art colleges of India and then returning to their villages to
continue the wonderful artistic tradition of Mithila region.
There
is only one less than 1-star hotel in Madhubani. We had to stay in a room
with Indian style toilet. There is a restaurant in the hotel but it was
stinking with exhaust from the kitchen. It is best to take packed food from
Patna. The road from Patna to the Nepal border in the north very near to
Madhubani is being constructed. The work on a four-lane highway was going on
day and night as we drove to Madhubani. Once the highway is completed it
would be a very fast and pleasant drive from Patna.
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