Raghurajpur : The pivot of Pattachitra paintings.

The evening of 10th June 2017 post lunch in Puri, we decided to visit the culturally famous village of Raghurajpur.

The place is about 10 kms from Puri and took us approximately 40 minutes to reach from our hotel.

Apparently this was just another village of rural India, which differs by its rich cultural heritage.

It is the place of famous “Pattachitra” painters who can bring alive the myths and folklores of Orissa,

the Stories of Ramayana, Mahabharata. A native skill being practiced since 12th century AD.

When we reached Raghurajpur, it was almost dusk and with street lights being turned on.

The village is situated on the southern bank of a river, named Bhargavi (According to google maps).

As we approached the village, we could see in the backdrop of setting sun, the serene flowing river besieged by bountiful trees. As it was getting darker by minute it was difficult to capture the essence of that beauty. Roads were narrow but properly built.

When you enter the village, a small temple welcomes you. As it was the “Sandhya aarati” time, we saw lot of local villagers around the temple.

It was obvious that Raghurajpur was a place of believers.

Now once you are inside the village, you will suddenly find some villagers coming to you and inviting you to their workshop

and you have to quickly decide whose workshop you will first visit.

Here it is important to highlight, that never did we feel that we are in a market and people are just trying to get something out of us, but instead they will courteously come by and request you to visit their studio-workshop.

Meanwhile we have picked our guy (young man in his early 20s , introduced himself as Ashok) and accordingly started walking to his place.

If you look around and observe you will see a kind of a planned village where houses are facing each other and in between lies the road, also saw another temple, a common ground to seat and pray for the villagers.

According to Ashok, there are 140 families in that village and every family has practicing artisans.

He informed us this is also the village of the famous Classical Dancer Kelucharan Mahapatra and showed us his old house, now a broken shack.(I should have taken a picture, but missed ☹)

We have also noticed that each house in the village has a well decorated verandah/porch which was having various art-model displayed. As it was already dark I was unable to capture much, however for sake of understanding, will provide whatever was captured.

Moving on we finally reached his place and it was a one storied small house, conventional porch, showing up the way to a couple of bedrooms. One of the bedroom is transformed to a miniature art gallery cum studio. Once you are in that room you can see the wall racks holding on to several models made out of wood apples, betel nuts, palm leaves. Most content of art work is related to the folklore around Lord Jagannath and Lord Krishna.

The seating arrangement to this studio, consists of a few plastic stools for the patron and the artist seats out on a mat and explains us about the kind of work they are into.

The tradition of Pattachitra painting is passed on from father to son, but these days there are people who are picking up brushes and starting up their own studio, mentioned Ashok.

Even there are Gurukuls in Raghurajpur where one can enroll and learn the art of Pattachitra.

He explained to us how the Pattachitra canvas is prepared from two used up cotton sarees, and the durability of such canvas is unquestionable. The colours used are all natural and prepared by the artisan.

Sea shells found in abundance in Puri are ground using customary grinding techniques, and white color is prepared. A red tinted stone, locally called "Hingura patthar" post grinding reveals the red color. Similarly the “Haritar pathhar” makes the yellow color.

”Geri Mitti” provides the maroon color.Black color is prepared from lamp black collected by burning oil lamp.

The raw materials come to these artisans from the Tribal belts of Orissa.

These five colors are used in various combination and Voila you get the desired color, who needs a RGB palette here 😊.

To make the color last they mix the sap/glue prepared from sour wood apple (kodbel) fruit.

There is also another segment of similar painting done on a canvas made of Tassar Silk.

But I was more attracted to those made on “Patta”.

The paintings in the studio are kept as paper rolls and one by one they will show them to you.

They are segregated based on their accuracy and detailing. Both quality increases with the passage of time and Ashok feels the pride when he says that he is no way near to the skillset his father possesses and that his father is still working hard to achieve the expertise level of his departed grandfather. May His soul rest in peace.

We were shown several paintings made by his father and grandfather, the detailing, the grandeur, the aura surrounding the stories in those paintings are nothing short of absolute bliss.

It was obvious all these took extreme level of practice, and Ashok admitted that he is still in his learning phase but someday he is sure to achieve and reach the point when he gains the expertise he is being handed over as legacy.

As an example, below is the glimpse of the painting claimed as 85 years old, done by his grandfather.

There were so many other entrancing and enthralling paintings rolled and waiting for patrons in all such studios throughout the cultural village of Raghurajpur.

The price range of such paintings varies from INR 400 to INR 85000 and more, yes he showed us one such painting, he mentioned that painting took more than a year to complete and actually it was so much hypnotic that I actually missed taking a snap for memory.

Now coming to the other aspect of this village, the cons.

Everyone here claims to be an original painter, generation wise and the person next door is a newbie.

Rivalry is the buzzword here. You will feel it in the way they try showcasing their skill and art to be superior and better than others. Almost everyone has prizes, accolades to show you once you are in their studio, at one point I felt like, am already impressed by your art, I don’t need any proof. 😝

All said and done, I believe if one is visiting Puri, please give few hours to this place.

You will surely get an experience to remember.

You will see faith meeting skill.

You will see skills getting honed for more complexity.

You will see pride of being part of a family.

You will see practice being perfected.

Most importantly, you will be hypnotized by the “Pattachitra” paintings and perhaps you may get the perfect painting you haven looking around for your drawing room for so long ! 😊

#Raghurajpur #PattachitraPaintings