A village of artists
Hugh & Colleen Gantzer

Many walls had been covered with murals

A Gotipua troupe at the Dasabhuja Gotipua Odishi Nrutya Parishad at the village

A woman paints in the verandah of her cottage. Photos by the writers

It's quite unique. There are other villages of artists and artisans, but few of them are creators by birth and inheritance. And no other village is dedicated to the depictions of the activities and manifestations of the Lord of the universe and his siblings. In Ragurajpur, in the green and watered heart of rural Odisha, there is a magnificent obsession with Jagannath, his brother Balabhadra, and their sister Subhadra. These three mysterious deities, strangely limbless and with large, compelling eyes, are created periodically by special sculptors from the wood of an auspicious neem tree and installed in a secret ceremony in the great temple of Jagannath in Puri. Once a year they are ritually bathed, rested, and then taken out in a huge procession, mounted on enormous chariots. The slow, implacable, movement of those chariots have given a word to the English language: juggernaut. a massive inexorable force.

The village, and its arts, has not, however, grown out of that teeming yartra, but by what went before. For, when the deities are resting after their bath, they are sequestered from their devotees. Their many worshippers then turn to surrogate images of the three and also install them in shrines in their homes. This is the growing need that sustains the vibrant village of Raghurajpur.

Just beyond the guest house stretched the two parallel streets of this village, separated by a row of temples. Most houses had tiled roofs, were raised on plinths and had verandas. Many of the walls had been covered with paintings as if their owners were compulsive artists. Beyond a pair of sandals on a step, shrines had been created on both sides of the entrance to the house, picked out in white, abstract, designs with the precision of computer art. A cycle was propped against a high, blue, plinth, murals decorated the wall behind. A third house carried depictions of the many, distinct, seasons recognised by our folklore.

Everyone in Raghurajpur is an artist: sculptures, carvers, painters, dancers, musicians and creators of the unique pattachitra. Unlike the religious artists of medieval Europe, spread across their continent, the people of this single village claim a franchise on depictions of their lord. "Even those who now work elsewhere" they assured us, "came originally from Raghurajpur. It is our special gift."

Abakasha Nayak, sat on his veranda, painting on a palm leaf. Raghurajpurians seemed to be genuinely contented with their lot. Their families also are, very clearly, multi-talented, with siblings and relatives expressing themselves in varied ways. Jai Dev Maharana crafted sets of the world's first playing cards. They were circular and came in packs of 144. One artist of his family was a painter and had created a large panel of the rath yatra procession of Lord Jagannath.

The Lord, according to his devotees, is the primal manifestation of Lord Vishnu, Preserver of the Triune Godhead. He also appears age after age as his avatars, including Lord Krishna.

Kalacharan Swain was drawing a scene from a story of Lord Krishna on pale green strips of palm leaf. He would then incise his sketch with a stylus, fill the incisions with soot, wash it and dry it till the strips became as hard as wood. "I will stitch these 24 inch strips together to make a five-feet long scroll. How many months will it take? About three. Why Lord Krishna? He is an incarnation of the Lord of the Universe. No?" Kalacharan was 22 years old and had been apprenticed when he was 17. He is keeping alive a tradition of indestructible, illustrated, palm-leaf manuscripts which could have pre-dated the legendary papyri of the ancient Egyptians.

The Prusty family were particularly gifted. Dilip Kumar specialised in Patta Chirta and he had been making these traditional paintings for 15 years. He used a special process involving tamarind seeds and powdered stone to give curtain cloth the toughness of canvas. On that, applying natural colours, he created a very sophisticated and stylised folk-art that is typical of Raghurajpur. Dilip Kumar also does paintings on tussar silk, his father and sister are wood carvers and his mother is a papier mache artist.

The many arts of Ragurajpur are evolving. We had first visited this intriguing village many years ago and we were delighted to find that the artists have now diversified to meet changing needs. Roshini Kamalkanki painted coconuts with the images of Lord Jagannath and his two siblings. Others depicted them on earthen pots and even on tiny areca nuts to ward off evil influences. The smiling, grey-haired, Sashidei Maharana, catering to the pilgrims visiting local festivals, made tiny, brightly coloured, images of the three deities in cow-dung.

Now, we also discovered a unique performing art that we had not seen earlier. At the far end of the village we stepped into a small complex of buildings with an impressively long name: the Dasabhuja Gotipua Odishi Nrutya Parishad. We sat in a hall with a stage at one end and, below it, three musicians with a harmonium, a drum and cymbals. When everything was ready, a line of dancers in saris, jewellery and heavy make-up entered. They welcomed us, then, when the musicians played, they danced an invocatory prayer and then started their performance. They were lithe, graceful and oddly gymnastic. In fact many of their movements would have been frowned upon by our more conservative people. Later, we learnt that all of them were pre-pubescent boys and that the best Gotipua dancers had gone on to become some of the most famous artistes of Odisha's famed Odissi.

Clearly, the people of this village continue to be inspired by their belief in the triune Spirit of the Universe: Lord Jagganath, Balabhadra and Subhadra. Raghurajpur is an intriguing, self-renewing, well-spring of creativity.

Factfile

Getting there: By air from Delhi to Bhubaneswar and then 62 km by road to Puri by bus or taxi. It is 12 km from Puri to Raghurajpur by taxi, or 52 km from Bhubaneswar to Raghurajpur by taxi.

Accommodation: Bhubaneswar =OTDC's Hotel - Tel:(0674)2432515 & 2432314. There are also a number of other hotels.

Puri - Orissa Tourism's Pantha Niwas adjoining the Beach; Tel: 06752-222562; Nayak Beach Resort - Tel 06752-221382. There are also other hotels at Puri.

For any other information contact: Orissa Tourism Development Corp.Ltd. Lewis Road, Bhubaneswar 751014, Orissa email:otdc@ortel.net/ otdc@panthanivas.com

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