An Odisha village where people live for and with art
Raghurajpur in Odisha’s Puri district provides a glimpse into another world where art is the organising principle of the village. The traditional professions of painting and carving structure the daily life of the local residents.
Unlike other Indian villages where youth vie for government and private jobs, children here prefer to join their parents in art work — despite poor monetary returns.
Sumitra Moharana, daughter of Harihara Maharana, did not pursue higher studies as she wanted to make Pattachitra paintings — that involve using colours on a cloth to create mythological images. Her younger sister Suchitra Moharana also followed in her footsteps and both of them are now actively engaged in upholding the village’s centuries old tradition..
Ashok Behera, the 29-yearold son of Shankar Behera, also discontinued his studies to concentrate on Pattachitra paintings. He learnt the techniques of the art from Guru Kalucharan Barik of the village.
“The youth of our village prefer not to go outside. Instead, they all want to continue practicing the different forms of art,” says Mr Barik.
“I learnt painting from Jagannath Mohapatra who highlighted our village at national and global platforms,” says Mr Barik.
He recalls how Mr Mohapatra invited aspiring learners to his home to teach them different art forms.
“Very often, he found it hard to feed all his trainees. But no one complained,” says Mr Barik.
Laxmidhar Subudhi, who won the national award this year for his palm-leaf work Krishna Leela, is proud of his four children - son Prashant and daughters Subhalaxmi, Nayana and Khulana – who have excelled in palm-leaf paintings.
The village has 145 families. Nearly 500 members of these families are engaged in Pattachitra paintings, stone and wood carvings, coconut and betel nut carvings, paper masks, Ganjifa (playing cards made of cloth), palmleaf engravings and cowdung toy making.
Despite poor monetary returns, the artists keep going on due to their emotional bonding with the heritage.
According to state tourism minister Ashok Panda, the state government had made some recent interventions in the village for improving the economic standard of the artists and efforts were made to link them to wider markets in India and abroad.