Presenting art through song

When you watch them first, the works of Rani Chitrakar appear as scroll paintings that we would often come across in art expos. But it is only when she presents the artwork in the traditional and unique style in song to convey the story in her paintings, one will know the how unique the Patachitra/scroll painting of West Bengal is.
Hailing from Madanipur district, 50-year-old Rani is in the practice of creating the Patachitra for about 45 years now.Having learnt the art form from her parents even as she was five years old, she says: "Creating these paintings is a family tradition. It was passed on to me by my parents and now, my children are into it. The scroll paintings are unique traditional narrative works in practice among the Chitrakars from West Bengal since ages and are unique as they are created using natural vegetable dyes." The paintings are created with natural dyes such as flowers and leaves and each of them will have a story to narrate.
The artist who has won about three state awards for her works has not just participated in exhibitions across India, but has also toured places in the US and UK, putting on show the traditional Indian folk art that she has been into since her childhood.
"As I have been making these paintings since childhood, I cannot think of discontinuing this practice. As a tradition, I have also passed it on to my children," she says, "For, if we Chitrakars stop creating the Patachitra, the art will fade away one day," she adds. Apart from creating and selling the paintings, Rani also visits schools and colleges to train students in Patachitra art form.
Since she has been creating the scroll paints for years, she has a set of customers who visit her from different places, just to purchase her paintings, she claims. "I have customers from abroad too, who come down exclusively to my native place to purchase my paintings. That makes me real happy." And when asked if her paintings fetch her enough for a living, she says, "I earn enough for a living through my works and when I don't, I enjoy travelling across villages in the surrounding areas, singing and demonstrating my works to people who treat me well and offer me money and food. It's all a part and parcel of my life and I enjoy doing it."