Text: Parvathy Baul & Sundar RamanathaiyerPhotos: Ravi Gopalan NairDesign: BhattathiriBack cover: Trivandrum Ektara Festival 2012
Limited EditionPublished by aim arts initiative, KolkataPrinted in Kolkata
© Ekatara Kalari, Nedumangad, Trivandrum 695 541email: [email protected]
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Catalogue of the exhibition of paintings
based on Baul storytelling ~ ‘ChitraKatha Geeti’
at Bengal Art Gallery, Ho Chi Min Sarani, Kolkata
5th -11th January 2013 11am-7pm
Organized by
aim art initiative and Karigar Haat
Collaborative Partner
ICCR, Kolkata
ChitraKatha+
By the grace of my Gurus, I have been a student of Baul for the
last twenty years. My first interaction with the Baul tradition
was in Shantiniketan where I was a student of Painting at
Kalabhavan.
Those days, I would spent long hours sketching Baul Sadhakas at the
Baul festivals, Akharas and the Sadhu gatherings at the Smashan. I
was drawn into their music and lifestyle; I wanted to know more about
the magic of unconditional love that was conveyed to me through
every Baul song I heard, and from every meeting with Baul Sadhakas. I
was eager to be a part of the large space of ̀ Baul Parampara’
which can embrace everyone and everything with
empathy and compassion.
I first entered the world of Baul as a painter. It took me
several years to go deep into the Sadhana of Baul
and become a Baul singer incorporating music, dance,
voice and my whole being in union with Bhava. Having
given up most of my habits for the sake of achieving
perfection in the Baul practice, what remained were
Sanatan Baba ‘reading’ the ChitraKatha painting ~ (Chittore House, Trivandrum, 2003)44
mostly images which came to me while singing ~
those images in the story of Radha and Krishna.
Slowly images took the shape of ChitraKatha. I
should admit here that the passion for painting
was much stronger in me as a child than music. Music came
much later. There were times when I used to spend long hours
studying birds, trees, insects, rivers and the human life around.
Stories with pictures always fascinated me, and so did the graphic
novels we would get as gifts.
Bengal has a long tradition of storytelling of Ramayana and
Mahabharatha. Yet, storytelling flourished most during the
Vaishnava period through ‘Padavali Leela Kirtan’. The simple love
epics of Radha and Krishna are sung even today from dusk to dawn,
and the stories transcend all the borders of mind and
self-consciousness, elevating the spectators into
a pure inner experience of Bhakti. At times, the
spectators also experience the ̀ Ashta Swatika
Bhava’. I had spent long hours listening to
the `Padavali Leela Kirtan’ at the Vaishnava
festivals in Burdwan, Murshidabad and
Cooch Bihar. I was captivated by the ability of
storytellers to generate a unique experience for
Rupanurag 1 ~ Radha before meeting Krishna and the poet Chandidas 46
the spectators who already knew the story from beginning to end. At
the same time, I was amazed at the transformative power of a simple
story.
Many may not be aware that Baul has a specific genre of storytelling
known as `Leela Tatwa’, much inspired from the Padavali Leela
Kirtan. Baul sang the life stories of great Baul Sadhakas like Chandidas,
Bilwamangal, Jayadeva, Vidyapati. Both my Gurus - Sanatan Das Baul
and Shashanko Goshai - gave me the repertoire of Baul storytelling.
They inspired me to be inquisitive and innovative. I loved the stories
they taught me, and I would paint those stories and show it to my
Gurus, who would go through every detail of the story-paintings and
give opinions. They both thoroughly enjoyed `reading’ my paintings
All these became fairly relevant in my later years when I wanted to
perform these stories to a large number of spectators from different
languages and cultures. These paintings served as a bridge
between us, offering an open space of universal visual language
of communication.
As I had a clear musical
concept with Baul poems
written by the Sadhakas, I had
Rupanurag 2 ~ Radha watching the reflection of Krishna in the river Yamuna 48
to find a name. To create dramaturgy in a performance-like situation,
at times I had to compose songs. I named my work as ‘ChitraKatha
Geethi’. I started painting the stories in simple sequential narratives,
using bright colors, which I felt represented the Baul songs I sing. I
really wanted to paint using natural colors; but since I was planning
to travel around with the paintings, they had to be durable and able to
withstand the traumas of long travels. I used acrylic on canvas.
Chitra means picture (paintings, drawings, sketches, doodles etc.)
which every child loves to draw, and Katha means story, which
every child loves to listen to. ‘Geethi’ signifies songs. ‘ChitraKatha
Geethi’, of course, is the art of telling/singing stories with
pictures (mostly sequential art, with or without words, as
in temple Mural paintings, cartoons, comics, graphic
novels etc.).
When the paintings came into the Baul story-telling,
everything seemed to change. It was different from
my earlier performances. Along with the singing and
dancing, the colorful world of paintings devoid of words
seamlessly integrated into the performance. I felt that
storytelling got transformed into mono-theatre. At times, I
became the character in the story.
Rupanurag 3 ~ Enchanted Radha on her way to the divine flute player 410
I have been working and exploring the possibilities of ChitraKatha
Geethi for the last 14 years, and it has undergone quite a few
transformations. I have also tried to perform outside the Baul array of
stories.
This is my first exhibition of ChitraKatha Geethi in Bengal. Since
picture storytelling is an integral part of Bengali life, I am very
happy to share my work and ChitraKatha Geethi experience with you.
Joy Guru
Let’s hear every story. Let other stories become ours. May our stories
be ONE.
With love and regards,
Parvathy BaulKolkata, 5th Jan 2013
Rupanurag 4 ~ The departure 412
About Sung Paintings or Cantastoria
ChitraKatha Geethi
‘‘There nowhere is or has been people without narrative…it is simply there
like life itself.’‘-Roland Barthes
Picture-story recitation, although as old as the hills, is also as new
as yesterday. The verbal narrative with paintings exists even today
in all cultures across the globe.
According to the scholars and researchers, Indian tradition of storytelling
accompanied by painted scrolls can be traced back to at least the
second century BC and is known to have existed almost all over the
subcontinent.
Sinologist and scholar Victor Mair traces the ‘roots’ of picture story
performance to India, where he mentions - a low order of Brahmins
called Devalkar made a living by carrying paintings of Gods from
door to door, singing about the powers and attributes of these
Gods, and begging for charity. Mair cites numerous references
to particular kinds of picture scrolls in India from the 6th century,
for example, the `Yamapattaka‘ which display pictures ‘probably
on cloth scrolls or hanging [vertical] [and who sung] of the rewards
Rupanurag 5 ~ Celebrating ‘Rasaleela’ in the full moon 414
and punishments to be experienced in the realm of Yama, God of the
Underworld’. Yamapattaka is even today performed by the Patuas and
Santal tribe artists of Bengal. References also appear in political tracts of
the time to spies disguising themselves as picture showmen in order to
travel freely. Indeed, from this very early mention of picture storytelling,
the performers are characterized as disreputable, underprivileged, and
nomadic vagrants who made their living from their pictures.
Despite this association with illegitimacy, the stories performed were
religious and their subject matter divine. The narrator of the `Par’ (a
later form of Indian picture story recitation) was called the ̀ Bhopa’, a word
meaning ‘priest for a minor folk deity’. The Bhopa sang the narration while
his assistant (often his wife) held an oil lamp and illuminated the relevant
part of the picture. The paintings themselves were thought to have
special properties. It was believed that to sleep in the same room with a
powerful scroll could heal the sick or the infirm. Paintings were passed
from generation to generation, as were the songs and the knowledge of
how to sing them.
Indian picture-story performance then travelled
through Central Asia with the spread of
Manichaeism and Buddhism into China, where it
became `Pien’, `Pao-Chuan’, and `Layang-Pien’. It
Swargapattaka (Heaven) and Yamapattaka (Hell) 416
also spread to Indonesia, becoming `Wayang Beber’ - usually
long, horizontally-oriented painted scrolls, unrolled while a
narrator spoke and sung to explain the illustration. From
China, picture-story performance spread to Japan, becoming
the `Etoki’.
Mair tells us that picture-story telling travelled through Persia,
where it was called `Parde-dar’ or `Parde–zan’ in Iran, and on into
Europe at least in the middle ages. By the 12th century in Southern Italy,
painted illuminated scrolls were performed with sung prayer or narrative
recitation - known as ‘Cantastoria’. Cantastoria is an Italian word for
the ancient performance form of picture-story recitation, which involves
sung narration accompanied by reference to painted banners, scrolls,
or placards. It is a tradition belonging to the underdog, to chronically
itinerant people of low social status, yet also inextricably linked to the
sacred. It is a practice very much alive today, existing in a wide variety
of incarnations around the world, and fulfilling very diverse functions for
different populations.
In the early 16th century ̀ Cantambanco’ appeared in Italy. Cantambanco
means ‘bench singer’, as the travelling performer would stand
above the crowd on a little bench, singing and pointing to his pictures
with a stick. In Germany, the `Bankelsanger’ (bench singer) and the
Churning of the ocean and Rahu swallowing sun & moon 418
`Strassensanger’ (street singer) performed `Moritat’, which might refer
to the sensationalistic nature of these increasingly secular stories, often
taking murder, natural disasters and sordid tales of revenge as their
subjects. In Spain, the picture-story performer was called ̀ Cantor de Feria’
and the picture story itself known as ̀ Retablo de las Maravillas’, tableau (or
picture) of marvels. In France, the performer was known as `Le Chanteur
de cantiques’ or `Crieur de journeaux’. With the advent
of the printing press, these European performers
produced broadsheets which included verse
from their songs and sometimes reproductions
of the pictures as well, that they sold after the
performances.
The Australian aboriginal bark paintings also
represent their history and these history-telling pictures are taken as
powerful entities.
The form has recently found new life and a growing population of
aficionados in North America, particularly among puppeteers, artists,
and activists, many of them influenced over the years by the work of The
Bread and Puppet Theatre. Bread and Puppet’s director, Peter Schumann,
saw Bankelsang as a child growing up in Germany, and later encountered
Cantastoria in Italy as a young man. Picture-story telling appears in Bread
Parvathy painting her first colored ChitraKatha 420
and Puppet productions in various guises and in many different contexts.
Most often it appears with European-style features: painted or woodcut-
print banners (rather than horizontal scrolls); a solo narrator accompanied
by western musical instrument(s), and banners often with several pictures
enclosed in rectangular frames on each page, looking much like a comic-
book or story-board. However, although the basic characteristics of
Cantastoria are preserved here, over the years Bread and Puppet
Theatre has developed a rich and varied Cantastoria style, all
of its own.
Often Schumann chooses to make the form expansive, and
structures the Cantastoria such that large groups of people can
learn to participate and perform Cantastoria quickly and easily. This
is made possible by organizing participants into two groups or ̀ choruses’
on either side of the paintings, and assigning them simple musical and
movement tasks which they perform in unison, to punctuate the solo
narrator’s delivery.
Perhaps having longest history, picture storytelling is very much
alive in contemporary India as well. Pabujeer Bhopa has received
international acclamation, and is still performed with all its splendor as
part of Rajasthani family rituals, and outside the traditional context in
festivals and performance spaces both nationally and internationally.
First Chitrakatha at Bread and Puppet Theater (Vermont, 2000)422
The Patua of Bengal despite hard economic times is still flourishing and a
large number of women of the Patua community keep the tradition alive.
With the contribution of art lovers and workers, several Patua painters
have received international acclamation and ‘Pata’ exhibition and
performances are held across the globe.
The old Hamzanama storytelling has almost vanished; the paintings
are kept in different collections all over the world; new paintings have
not been created. However, the tradition of telling ‘Dastaan’ has recently
returned to its practice, and is gaining much popularity among the Urdu
speaking community around the world.
Pictures become breathing characters, singers become inspirers and
encouragers, and everyday citizens become active participants in the
making of their own culture~
References:
Mair, Victor H. Painting and Performance: Chinese Picture Recitation and its
Indian Genesis. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988
Donal, Clare. Museum of Everyday Life, Vermont , USA 2010
Jain, Jyotindra. Picture Showmen: Insights into the Narrative Tradition in Indian Art, Marg
Publication, 1998
Seyller, John. The Adventures of Hamza, Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India,
Washington, DC, 2002
Baul story trilogy at Beirut, Lebanon (2001) 424
arvathy Baul(from the mystic singer performer tradition of West Bengal)
PARVATHY BAUL (Mousumi Parial; born 1976) from West Bengal, now
lives and works in Trivandrum, Kerala since 1997. During her study at
Kalabhavan, Shantiniketan she was introduced to the Baul and got
initiated.
Parvathy Baul sings and dances with minimal use of Baul instruments
like Duggie, Ektara and Nupur all played by herself. She inherited this
style from the ‘Parampara’ of Shri Sanatan Das Baul (Bankura District,
who followed the style of the legendary Baul singer-practitioner
Shri Nitai Khapa) and Shri Shashanko Goshai (from the Gurukul of the
acclaimed singer-practitioner Shri Vrindavan Goshai and Shri Nityananda
Goshai of Mushidabad), who left his body at the age of 100 in March
2006.
For over a period of fourteen years she has been travelling to meet masters
of Bengal music traditions as a part of her search for Baul songs and
its practice. She practices various disciplines of painting, print making,
theatre, dance, art of storytelling, folksongs of Bengal, and yoga.
Parvathy did her first story-telling performance at Bread and Puppet Theatre
in Vermont,USA, where she was profoundly inspired by the works of Peter
Slaying of the demon Rahu at No Theatre Japan (2005) 426
Schuman. After this, she soon worked on her next performance and was
invited to perform in Lebanon. Her first performance of ChitraKatha Geethi
in Europe was at Ethno Museum in Geneva and later at the Festival de
l’Imaginaire in Paris. She was invited by Rietburg Museum, Zurich, to
recreate the stories of Hamzanama based on the original works of
Hamzanama painters from the Mughal period.
Parvathy has performed ChitraKatha Geethi giving workshops in several
countries. She has performed ChitraKatha Geethi in Trivandrum, Kolkata,
Pondicherry and Auroville. She has exhibited ChitraKatha Geethi in
Trivandrum (2002) at Rietburg Museum Zurich (2003) and at Ethno
Museum Geneva (2011).
She has created a new series of stories based on ‘Rupanurag’ for the Ethno
Museum, Geneva. Parvathy does woodcuts inspired by the metaphors
of Baul songs. She collaborates with Ravi Gopalan Nair for carving and
printing. All her woodcut prints are limited editions.
Radha Bhav, Trivandrum (2011) 428
My stories so far are:
Stories of Baul: Trilogy - The Womb, Chandidas and Kalia
The Secret Womb Story of Sage Shukadev
Radha Bhav
Hamzanama: The Story of Prophet Ilias
Hamzanama: The Defeat of Emperor Zumrud Shah
The Slaying of Demon Rahu
Rupanurag
The plates printed in this Catalogue are from ‘Rupanurag’
series, the first performance of which will be held in Paris in
2014.
Painting Rupanurag at home (2010) 430
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