Scrolls Of Time

In Amadubi in the rural outskirts of Jamshedpur, a community of artist-performers practice the rare, centuries-old folk-art form of Pyatkar. As scrolls of paintings unfurl, songs emanate, telling the stories of myths, nature, wars, and festivals.

- Anurag Mallick & Priya Ganapathy

IN THE ARTIST village of Amadubi in the East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, painter Vijay Chitrakar sat in a little hut that stood in the shade of a palash (Flame of the Forest) tree. His eyes were closed in meditation, and as he cleared his throat to sing an ode to Durga, he slowly unfurled a scroll of a painting of the goddess. The performance was short but intense, and when he finished, he opened his eyes as if waking from a reverie. We had just witnessed a live rendition of the rare Pyatkar scroll painting, and it was mesmerising to say the least!

Once upon a time, Manbhum district—at the tri-junction of undivided Bihar, Bengal, and Odisha—was home to a community of nomadic artists and performers called chitrakars (literally, ‘picture makers’). It’s theorised that their art was called Pyatkar as they painted on paat—scrolls of cloth/tree bark, or perhaps, from paad— verse that accompanied their art. Long before the advent of moving pictures, these storytellers had been practising their unique folk-art form for centuries, fusing scroll painting and song. In the old days, artists concentrated on a mythological story before composing an ode. After imagining a storyline, they painted it with mineral and vegetable hues extracted from nature—rocks, soil, and leaves collected from deep inside the forest or by the river. During the performance, the scroll would slowly be unfurled even as the corresponding verses were sung.