Tribal art travels far from fair

KOLKATA: "Kachbera Kanchanpur, Kanchanberar majhe, Radha Krishna dujane tar milan hoyechhe/Eikhanete shesh korilam kabitar bandana, naam Karuna Chitrakar (Radha and Krishna have been united at Kanchanbera, here ends my story, my name is Karuna the Painter)," Karuna Chitrakar signs off.
Karuna has been coming to Kolkata Book Fair for the last 13 years from Midnapore.She sits on the ground near the food court, the scroll paintings all around her and feels grateful for the opportunity the book fair gives her every year to earn some money.
And she is painfully unaware that her works act as a lullaby for many children abroad. The children''s book, ''To the local bazaar'', combines Karuna''s art to illustrate a shopping trip to the market by a young girl and her mother.
It uses the ''pata'' style, which traditionally uses a framed picture in a scroll that is unfolded to tell a story. The book has been compiled by Maura Hurley Basu. "Maura is from New York and now lives in Japan. She made me draw the pictures and printed them into a book. She gave me some copies and took the rest abroad with her. She comes back every year and gives me some money for the book."
Karuna said. The art, more than 1,000 years old, has been handed down to her through generations.
Karuna''s pata painting talks of various subjects from the love between Radha and Krishna to the life of the Santhals, from messages about the need for planting trees to pleas for maintaining communal harmony. All the stories unfold in Karuna''s smooth voice, the depth of which transports one sometimes into the rhythm of a Santhal dance and sometimes into the world of Lord Krishna.
When someone wants to buy a painting, she shows it to them, insisting that one must hear her sing out the story behind the picture. "There are many other ethnic art forms such as Madhubani, which are also very popular. But our art is absolutely different. Without the singing, the paintings have no meaning." Karuna says.