A very watery world

Mithila artist Rambharos Jharsquos book Waterlife is many things all at once In places it is a page out of a young boyrsquos mental scrapbook while he sat beside the Ganga in Mithila in Bihar watching a huge snake forking through the water and a valiant frog leaping away As children Mithila artist Rambharos Jha and his brother often went fishing This drawing in his new book Waterlife is inspired from the childhood memory of a rainy day when he was startled by a huge snake forking through the water and a valiant frog leaping away as if his life depended on itu00a0 Pics courtesy Waterlife tara books On another page it is an illustrated fable from the Panchatantra wherein a crane fools a shoal of fish in a pond and eats them all up Turn another page and the book is a tribute to the motifs in Mithila art mdash the fish for instance which is believed to bring you good luck if you see it before setting out on a journey or starting something new Actually for 35 yearold Jha Waterlife is an honest rendition of an inseparable part of his life mdash Mithila art Jha says he was born in Darbhanga a district in Bihar known for its rich traditions of folk art His father however soon moved to Madhubani with his family and began working with governmentsupported art and cultural projects And Jharsquos mind closely worked with the art created within those four walls Lobsters arenrsquot part of traditional Mithila motifs However Rambharos Jha was struck by its duality mdash it is food for some but if not cooked well it can be poisonous This made him wonder about what really lies inside the creature ldquoA selfemployed womenrsquos association was a part of the art project too Everyday Irsquod see these women mdash some who had been thrown away from homes by their husbands some who were married off as children others who had faced dowryrelated abuse mdash and they created the most beautiful Mithila artrdquo says Jha ldquoThatrsquos when I fell in love with the art formrdquo Interestingly Mithila art deeply reveres the female energy It is done with aripan a mixture of rice paste and vermillion which is believed to denote female energy In fact Mithila art owes most of its beauty to the women of Bihar not the men Women in Bihar says Jha arenrsquot treated well The tortoise and the frog are favourite motifs in Mithila art Jha painted them along a river and imagined them deep in conversation ldquoI think most of them fill their void with this art because Mithila paintings were originally done on the walls and floors of homes Gangadevi a renowned Mithila artist was abandoned by her husband because she couldnrsquot bear children People here prefer not to look at women who cannot conceive ndashndash but look at her She doesnrsquot need any validation from them anymorerdquo says Jha In the rsquo70s it was Bhaskar Kulkarni who took Mithila art beyond the confinements of walls and brought it to paper with government support ldquoThanks to his efforts humble artists like me can bag a book dealrdquo says Jha as if he cannot believe his luck Jha found it difficult to draw male sea horses with their pouches full of eggs and show them swimming vertically When Jha was in high school he began making sketches of Haider Ali Tipu Sultan and Akbar in his history textbooks Soon the hobby consumed him and he decided to become an artist ldquoEven then I was obsessed with the Ganga and the creatures in it I have made more than a hundred Mithila drawings of the species of fish I have seen and inventedrdquo Waterlife is rich with traditional motifs of Mithila art mdash fish snakes the traditional drawing of a spider crab beside a crab a Mithila tradition lotuses and so on Fish are important auspicious motifs in Mithila art It is believed that they bring you good luck if you spot them before you set out on a journey or plan to start something new However he has not shied away from taking the art beyond its historical confines even while he keeps it deeply rooted in tradition There is for instance a lush drawing of a lobster which finds no mention in traditional Mithila art Jha explains that he wanted Waterlife to depict the life in water as closely as possible Sticking to freshwater creatures would not have done justice to the idea so Jha decided to introduce saltwater creatures mdash like the lobster mdash too ldquoI donrsquot want to lose touch with my tradition but I want to experiment too like all artists would love to It is a heady feelinghellipwhen you can do both rdquo he smiles Mithila artiste Rambharos Jha Apart from motifs Jha merrily plays with his colours and textures too He loves how his colours come from flowers mdash the orange from the harshringar the yellow from mustard and the kaner flowers and the black from soot ldquoBut Mithila art has changed over time Nowadays young collegeeducated boys and girls start learning Mithila art on paper not on the walls like it was originally taughtrdquo says Jha The wall he says poses its own challenge in terms of textures and discipline You cannot for instance easily erase a drawing from the wall but you can simply crumple your sheet of paper and start afresh ldquoLearning on a wall teaches you to be patient and disciplinedrdquo says Jha Early this year Mithila art expert and enthusiast Peter Zirnis visited Madhubani and met artists working on Mithila art Jha took him around the region and discussed the art form in detail Zirnis has been a part of the Ehtnic Arts Foundation a nonprofit arts organisation founded in Berkeley US in 1980 Zirnis a computer programmer says he cannot explain his attraction to Mithila art and puts it down to its vibrant colours and a strong narrative ldquoIn 2007 I heard there were direct flights from Newark to India I simply hopped on one and came to Biharrdquo This year too Zirnis spent his time meeting Jha and other women artists who have created feminist Mithila paintings Zirnis says Jharsquos whimsical childlike simplicity when it comes to his art is refreshing ldquoHis work is joyous traditional yet so contemporaryrdquo No matter how many creatures he invents in the course of his art Jha says hersquoll always remain partial to fish u00a0ldquoI love the rhythm in their form mdash the lines of their body the finshellippaani mein machhli machhli mein paanihelliprdquo Waterlife Rambharos Jha Tara Books Rs 950u00a0