Where has the "Jatra" gone?

Till about 15 -20 years back, various Jatra or performing drama troupes would descend on the capital to perform during the Durga Puja. The word "Jatra" itself means a journey, and the troupe members would be on the road in various parts of the country, for most of the year, except for the harvesting season, when they returned to base, presumably somewhere in West Bengal.

 Most of the stories they told would be based on mythology, the epics, or folk tales. The stories would cover legendary kings, gods and goddesses (specially Ma Durga, Kali, Chandi, Ma Manasha), and characters from the puranas. The performance typically started late evening, and could go on for 3-4 hours, stopping just before day-break.

Over time, the Jatra started covering whatever was current in national politics, the literature of the times including love stories (stories from Bankimchandra and Tagore), stories about royalty, and they also made comments on social changes that were taking place.

The clothes, script, dialogue delivery, the posters used for Jatra were all stylized and over-dramatic. The music was semi-classical raga-based or based on well known folk tunes and rhythms. Instruments were usually, dholak, pakhawaj, harmonium, flute and behala (the local violin), tabla, cymbals and trumpets. Songs had to be sung by the actors themselves.

Since the performance was on a stage open on all sides, with practically no sets, and humans sang, or had monologues and dialogues coming in from all sides, there was much commenting, accompanying and merriment in the crowd, which sat on all sides of the stage.

There was another special feature about a Jatra. Apart from a commentator or Sutradhar who strung together various poems, side stories, and dances to the plot, there were a few special characters in a Jatra performance: A figure called Bibek or Conscience would come in at any juncture, pose questions to the audience, give his philosophical perspective, and also discuss future scenarios. Another character called Niyoti or Fate, usually played by a female, would comment on, or foretell the role of time and destiny. There was also sometimes a special actor called Bahurupi (or the one with multiple forms), who true to his name, could take on all sorts of different persona!

I wonder where the Jatra has gone in the days of TV and the internet. I do hope it gets revived and it could then possibly get telecast from a huge arena, with live twitter and messages coming in just like the big games!

Chaos and Harmony: More storms

Exactly a week after the last post, there was a pretty violent storm that hit Delhi, with winds at over 92 km per hour. Well, my fascination with storms meant that my second painting of the "Leaf Storm" series was complete. The colours give a different strength to the chaos, and harmony of scattered leaves, twigs, flowers, nuts and buds. While many old and wrinkled branches fall off trees in such a storm, a few young ones are plucked off before their time:

For people on the road, the storm meant a terrible amount of dust, trees swaying, traffic getting disrupted and things flying from balconies and roofs and hoarding, and hurtling around like dangerous missiles, and then there was darkness at noon!

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/storm-wreaks-havoc-in-delhi-9-killed/article6068062.ece

and http://www.ndtv.com/photos/news/traffic-jams-in-delhi-after-massive-storm-12759




My exhibition is on at Triveni Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Tansen Marg, New Delhi till the 6th June.

Leaf Storm

There have been quite a few squalls lately bringing down the temperature. One image you often see during such events is a "whirling dervish" of leaves.
A little wind stirs up all the leaves, scoops them up, and whirls them round and round. Sometimes the leaves settle down temporarily, and take off in a more energetic whirl, and sometimes they go around in smaller circles. Or they may chase each other playfully down the road.

My painting "Leaf Storm" celebrates this playfulness in nature. The title is in honour of the first novel of the same name by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Here is the painting:

This and other paintings celebrating the dynamic playfulness of nature will be on display during my forthcoming exhibition "Impression to Expression" at Triveni Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi, from 28th May to 6th June, 2014, all days 11 am. to 7 pm. 

All those who can make it are invited. For those of you interested but not in town, or who cannot make it due to other reasons, I will be putting up the images later on my website www.mitabrahma.com

An artist's room

The 55th National Exhibition of Art was on at the Lalit Kala Akademi, showcasing award winning entries in visual arts for the year. There were a few films being screened too on works of eminent artists. I was able to see one: a documentary film called "Ram Kumar: Nostalgic Longing" produced by the Akademi, and directed by Laurent Bregeat, which was rather nice, showing the artist at work, and capturing his conversation as he worked.

Sharing an image of a sculpture from the exhibition:

"The Artist's Room in Arles" was painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1889. It has obviously inspired many artists to show their rooms, because here is one from the exhibition:

Flame of the forest

The flame-of-the-forest, or Palash flowers were in bloom well before Holi, all over Delhi and Gurgaon, as soon as weather turned warm. The Palash trees had shed their old leaves, and one could see the buds on the bare branches, as a curtain-raiser, till suddenly the trees were in full bloom, the branches laden with flaming orange-red flowers.

Dried Palash flowers or Tesu, would be earlier put into huge brass caudrons of water, to extract a thick vibrant yellow colour, to be used for playing Holi. I'm hoping there will be enough people next year to put a stop to the present artificial colours, and get back to the natural colours of Tesu.

Also, maybe this will lead to more initiatives to plant Palash/ Tesu trees along our city roads. The Palash trees look majestic, and as the dry Tesu petals fall off, they make for a wonderful flaming orange pavement, a rare treat for the eyes!

An Art Factory

Surbhi Mehta, a young Gurgaon based artist has been busy the last few weeks creating an art hub in a large unused space of about an acre. The space was part of her father's paper factory. It came with a big open space, with peepul and neem trees, several potted plants, some factory sheds, and various unused machine parts, spares and paraphernalia.

The place has been cleaned, pruned and organized, the factory paraphernalia strewn around along with art installations and paintings, to form a vibrant creative space. An art-meets-factory workspace area. Complete with a factory style "chai" stall.

What also sets the place apart, is that though it is right in the middle of urban concrete and chaos, once you are inside the gates of the factory, it is a place with large trees and birds chirping, and a creative ambiance.
The plan is to hold art events and workshops and create an "open-space" of art and conversation. A few pics of the open-space:

Light between the trees

I love to look up and see the light filtering through the branches of trees. And sadly one sees the number of trees dwindling at a fast pace in the urban environment, and those that are there are not the old, dense types with a generous spread of branches. The modern urban trees mostly have narrow trunks, and a dismal famished appearance.

So I loved the exhibition of photographs, paintings and videos at the Art Heritage Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi, by Ms. Kavita Jaiswal, many of which captured the spread of old, wise trees, and the light filtering through them.

Here is one that I loved:

What also appeals to me in her works is the seemingly dynamic flow of materials over time, as in this one - and there were several such - with minimal colours, mostly shades of black, grey and white. These compositions reminded me of the earth's formation through the ages; only the flow was important, not the form :