It all started four decades ago: in the early 70s. Pupul Jayakar, the woman who unearthed many an Indian folk idiom, along with her assistant Bhaskar Kulkarni, was on a voyage of rediscovery. First they rediscovered the rich and colourful Madhubani art, and then the amazingly spartan idiom of Warli art that shunned the use of all colours except two: brown and white.
Jivya Soma Mashe, one of the accomplished Warli artists of the time, was invited to New Delhi for a demonstration of their art. In front of unbelieving eyes, on a sheet of brown paper Jivya drew the figure of Paalghaat, the Goddess of Fertility, sitting in the centre of an intricately drawn temple. When prodded to draw more visuals, Jivya drew a blank. He frankly admitted that this is all that every Warli artist knows to draw: the ritualistic drawing of the Goddess that is painted on the walls of a Warli house on the day of a wedding.
According to Phiroza Tafti, the convenor of the Dahanu Chapter of INTACH, Jivya was encouraged by Pupul Jayakar to break the shackles of convention and depict the rich mythology and the evocative legends of their tribe in their own inimitable Warli style. Jivya came back to his native village and had a meeting with other fellow artists. And once liberated from the strict traditions of ritualistic paintings, the floodgates opened and out flowed thousands of distinctly different Warli paintings: depicting their myths, folk tales and even their daily life. And Warli art moved from the depictions of God to the depictions of mere mortals.
On our visit to Dahanu in the northern belt of coastal Maharashtra, Phiroza Tafti offered to take us around the villages of the Warlis and share her experiences with us. All collected from the time she came to Dahanu as a newly-wed city-based rebel who made the chickoo orchard of her husband her permanent home.
A pilgrimage to the Waghoba Mandir was first on the list. Here we saw idols carved on totem poles. The totem pole was a relic from prehistoric times and the idol was a symbol of their unavoidable contact with the rest of the world. Originally the Warlis never worshipped man-made idols. The shaman of the village on his sojourn to the nearby hills would pick up small rocks that spoke with him in positive tones. These would then be kept under trees and they would become places of worship. Over many centuries, influenced by mainstream religions, the weather-beaten stones eventually took man-made shapes, and temples were built around them.
While inside the shrine of the Tiger God Waghoba, Phiroza insisted that we sit down and feel the vibrations of the place. And indeed as we closed our eyes in deep meditation, a certain calmness soothed our souls. Was it the sound of the stream that flowed nearby or was it the sound of the stream of consciousness?
The Warlis are a simple folk with simple beliefs that govern their simple lives. According to Yashodhara Dalmia, an authority on tribal arts and Indian anthropology, the Warlis are frugal in their habits and even in their speech.
A Warli woman, before she cooks supper, asks her family members how many ’bhakris’ each one would eat that night. And she would then make exactly that number. When Yashodhara asked the woman why she does this every day, day after day, the woman replied, ’These bhakris are roasted on the back of Kansaari, the Goddess of Harvest. Why give her more pain than what’s necessary?’
Another unique character of this tribe is that they speak very little, almost in monosyllables. That’s because the Warlis believe words have an uncanny habit of suddenly becoming real. So they ensure they don’t speak anything untoward lest it becomes true.
Probably in sheer contrast to this frugality, every Warli artist pours his heart out while painting. Though the figures are graphic, devoid of details and colour (like cave paintings), they are surprisingly rich in their choice of subjects: human figures in various situations, gods and goddesses, trees, plants, and animals. Even the minutest of them all, the ant, finds place in their paintings. As Yashodhara puts it so succinctly, ’The paintings are rich yet hieroglyphic in effect.’
Since Phiroza had to rush off to the school where she teaches, she assigned us to Yashode, her trusted Warli maid of 30 years. Yashode turned out to be more Warli than most: in terms of using words. While giving directions as I was driving, she would just point her hand to the left or the right without speaking a single word!
She took us to the house of Janu Ravte, a promising young Warli painter. First he took me to his studio, which he shares with six other artists of his cooperative. Then, after a cup of tea, he took us around his house that was barely lit by a skylight on the tiled roof, and a lone, small window. It was a wall such as this, smeared with mud and cow dung, that was the original canvas of Warli art. And staring at that dingy wall, I understood why the Warlis don’t use colour but a white, rice-based paint to create their artworks. The sparkling white of the rice-paint gleams in the underlit house, catching even the faintest of sunrays that come in rather reluctantly. Giving the painting a truly ethereal feel.
Seeing Janu paint was a revelation. His hand was an extension of his mind, and his brush was an extension of his hand. It started with a basket and around it he weaved a tapestry of Warli life, all in a swirl of perpetual motion.
Today, in response to the thriving folk art market, villages after villages have taken up Warli painting; and in many cases the raw, creative energy has been replaced by static, decorative motifs that only have the purpose of being saleable. Underlining the fact that a painting becomes a work of art only if it’s created by the forces inside, not the forces outside. And it’s left to artists like Janu to uphold the fabulous traditions that have been transferred from one paint-brush to the next, across generations.
