A Madhubani painting

There are many different forms of folk art in India depending on where you come from. Rajasthan has the hand puppets, Chattisgarh has bastar sculpture and jewelry, Gujarat has bandini - I could go on. Each state has its own language, its own dialects, its own paintings, clothing .... there is just so much - and we haven't even reached music!!

Madhubani is a form of painting that originates in the Madhubani district of Bihar. It is a form of painting done on the walls of newly married couples to ward off evil spirits and give blessings. Often Gods and Goddesses are also depicted in these paintings.

I myself have drawn three Madhubanis - all drawn when I was in 11th grade, struggling with physics and chemistry. (I hated both these subjects - but I loved mathematics!) One of the madhubanis I drew depicted a woman warding off the evil eye - in traditional Madhubani style of course; the other one was depicting the Tree of Life - as per my interpretation.

Madhubanis are extremely complex in that while being two dimensional, they incorporate a lot of aspects that one sees in modern art. The concept of line and colour depicting as simply as possible the figure is very prominent in these paintings. The idea of dualism also comes across very strongly, particularly in portraits of Krishna-Radha. Each figure in Madhubani art is enclosed by a border to separate it from their surroundings. It's like the painting is saying - you are after all, alone in this world.

The third Madhubani and the one I'm going to discuss today is the one I drew as my family portrait. It's also very unique, in that I drew my family in order of birth and then had all of them standing sideways - as is the case in Madhubani paintings. But I made one exception, which till this date was unintentional. I had my mom looking at the larger audience - something which you don't usually see in Madhubanis with group figures. The reason I did this was I had drawn it as a present for my mother, so I decided to show her as the central figure. Later on a child psychologist looked at this and took out all sorts of wierd meanings for the painting I drew (really, sometimes I think that psychologists overthink too much).

Us kids I showed as fighting - as was usual, with my sister mediating between my brother and me. Later on however, in fact, just a couple of years later, both my little bro and sis would begin their combined pranks on their elder sister and have a great time at my expense. This was because of two reasons. One, I was a bossy elder sister (as is my right). Two, they both outgrew me and began to tower over me. Hence this physical strength multiplied by two gave them the resolve to take revenge for years of inflicted bossiness. This they took out in various forms. One of their favourites was to grab me from both sides and dangle me till I was done screaming. Another time they hoisted me up an apricot tree to pick apricots and then abandoned me when it was time to leave. My mother finally spotted me from the kitchen and then demanded they bring me down.

All good times though. I don't think you enjoy yourself as much as you do when you're kids.