A village in Bihar refuses to let one of India’s oldest art forms die

It is two in the afternoon but there’s no trace of sun in the lanes of this finely painted village. That’s how the December and January afternoons are in Jitwarpur, a craft village in Bihar; gloomy due to the weather, yet bright with pops of colour suffusing the murals. As I walk inside, closer to the houses, the smell of fresh paint hits my olfactory nerves. Two steps further, my eyes rest upon a dalaan—the open living or sitting area outside the homes in Bihar, used for formal meetings or to sip chai over conversations—painted only in red motifs, belonging to one Dhruvkala Devi. “It’s because red is the sacred colour we exclusively use for making wedding murals,” Dhruvkala explains.

Jitwarpur is a village in the Madhubani district of Bihar, considered the origin of Mithila or Madhubani paintings. Located in the Mithilanchal region of Bihar, where Maithili is the native language and people worship goddess Sita as their own daughter, it is home to the majority of Madhubani artists, some of whom own national and international honours, while others are successful business owners.

But Jitwarpur still lives a slow life. With many of the younger generations having migrated for work outside the district and even the state, it has fallen to the middle-aged and elderly to keep this ‘art village’ going. While the village is still unpopular among travellers, like most of Bihar, it is indeed a hotspot of bureaucrats and art lovers. “The current and past District Magistrates of Madhubani and Darbhanga have visited us several times with officials and family members. Researchers from across the globe also often visit us. They even bought paintings from us which were made on silk saris, dupattas and paper,” confirms Mithilesh Jha, a resident of Jitwarpur.

Mithilesh is the grandson of the late Sita Devi, a Padma Shri awardee, who was the first artist to bring Mithila painting to paper from the cow-dung–coated walls, allowing the art to travel the world, beyond the houses and walls that remained rooted in the village. “None of us has a shop or showroom here or outside the village. For us, this is pure art, limited to practice and perseverance rather than being exhibited for sales,” Mithilesh shares as he takes out a stash of fabrics painted over the years, some silk, some cotton, some saris, some dupattas, some table covers, some bedsheets. “You would find our almirahs and shelves filled with the paintings, hoping a buyer would take them home someday,” he adds, echoing how the village is not a craft bazar or museum but a lived canvas where creativity is practised for its residents without any deadline to meet and target to achieve.

“Dadi never let her fame take over her creativity. She was accompanied by her son—my father—on all the trips she took, be it our Raj Bhawan visit to meet the then PM Indira Gandhi, or Japan and the US for exhibitions. She always wanted to teach him the art, but it was all in vain. He was never interested but since he could not fully ignore his mother, he would just fill in the solid colours in the motifs and figures,” Mithilesh smiles.

Though not in the village itself, the region has several young artists who post their artwork on Instagram and run small businesses through social media. Like Swati Jha, a first-year MFA student from Darbhanga. “I have grown up seeing my mother, uncles and grandmother draw Mithila art on the walls, aripan (a kind of rangoli) on the floor and even on paper. Later, I started studying it in graduation but my focus remained on Madhubani paintings,” says Swati, who takes part in exhibitions and pop-ups to sell Madhubani-painted shawls, saris, dupattas, shirts and dresses.

Yet, artists like Dhruvkala Devi, who, at 76, still holds her number-3 Camlin brush in shivering hands to perfect the outline of Goddess Kali’s wide-set eyes, are what hold the village together and keep its traditions alive. “Come on in, you’ve only seen the dalaan. There’s more inside,” she says, gently pulling me through a narrow gallery lined with a large mural that leads into her three-room house, with yet another mural. All in scarlet red, without the interference of any other colour. “We recently ‘wrote’ all of this for my grandson’s wedding,” Dhruvkala tells me. Locally, artists refer to drawing Madhubani motifs as writing. We stand in front of the Kali figure as the gallery ends and we are joined by her daughter-in-law. “She also paints; I have taught her too,” Dhruvkala proudly reveals.

While Mithilesh learned Madhubani from his grandmother, his children did not carry it forward. He says there is a lot of love for the art in the global market, particularly among elite collectors and designers, but a big chunk of the profit is siphoned off by agents. They get the products made by local artists at cheaper rates and sell them at much higher prices. He also blames the pressure to contemporise the tradition, which, he argues, ruins the essence of the art form.

“Every day after breakfast, I begin working on an ongoing piece or start a new one,” says Mithilesh, as he slowly double lines the lotus on his canvas, perfecting the space between the first outline. He dips his brush into the black paint bottle and repeats the lining. “This one will be completed in a week,” he says, more to himself than to me.

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