"We are now assured of being paid the market rate," says Ramesh Hengadi, an artist who is listed in the California-based Marketplace catalogue that sells Indian craft in the USA. "Artists who step fresh out of their villages need not worry about payments either. The cooperative takes care of that."

Before the DTWA and INTACH entered the scene, Warli paintings were largely a matter of curiosity value, freely replicated in art manuals and government tourism brochures. Art college students also copied them on paper and cloth for sale while the originals remained plastered on the walls of Warli homes.

The paintings, executed in rice paste on a mud base, are in the form of diminutive triangular human and animal figures enjoined in a celebration. The compositions usually represent common village scenes with themes like women cooking or drawing water from the well, men tilling the ground or leading cattle, or else, people taking part in a group dance and making merry.

"Warli art was traditionally done by women, either at the time of marriage or at the annual harvest festival," explains Misra. "But now men have joined the fray and ringing in the changes. For instance, you will now find alien concepts like the aeroplane and motor car in the paintings".

"Some women artists have been resistant towards these changes as they feel the men have desecrated the sacred traditions of painting on mud walls," observes art historian Yashodhara Dalmia, who has authored a book The Painted World of Warlis.

Balu, for instance, comes from a family of male painters in Ganjad village and it is his father the veteran Soma Mashya, who holds the credit of making Warli art popular internationally. "We show and sell a lot of our work at the Mithila Museum in Tokyo", informs Balu. "My brother and I have grown up watching our father paint free-hand."

This is another aspect that has become a cause for concern among those anxious to preserve the pristine nature of the art tradition. "There will be no mass printing and production of paintings," assures Rustom. "Everything has to be hand-painted. Churning out paintings and commercialisation can kill creativity".

The cooperative formed at the instance of Rustom and her friend, Nerghis Irani, not only fixes the rate of every painting but also ensures that every member painter gets an equitable share of the centre’s profits. Market development and promotions are also undertaken to "popularise and preserve" the art form.

"We are looking for design intervention from bodies like the National Institute for Design and National Institute of Fashion Technology," says Rustom. "Experiments have already begun. Some artists now paint on dupattas and saree pallus. I even got some lines designed in Warli art motifs, which were printed in a pattern over pillow covers, cushions and napkins."

In fact, lkea, the Holland-based linen store, chose most of these patterns, but the project had to be abandoned because of lack of printing infrastructure. But then, the artists are also taking individual initiatives and, like Mashya and Hengadi, are sharing the fruits of their labour through the cooperative. MF