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India Today
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
What makes Chittara murals a hidden gem
The Madhubani paintings of Bihar's Maithili-speaking Mithila region were unknown to the larger world until a Britisher gave it a platform in the late 1970s by doing a book on it. Then the culturatti of Delhi and the sarkari patronage systems and the badshahs of Bollywood took over, and every drawing room, airline interior or powder-rooms in big hotels boasted of it. This was some 40 years happened next, in the 1980s—Warli wall art, a lesser-known tribal art confined to a part of Maharashtra until the same design jet set of Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Baroda and Delhi put it on a pedestal. Now, one hopes it will be the turn of Karnataka's Chittara, a higher-grade version in both form and design; ritually and socially indigenous art at its Western Ghats are rich in wildlife, waterfalls, hills and forests, in which dwell the most sophisticated artists and graphic designers. Using brushes made of the simplest of straw or natural fibre (pundi naaru) and colours extracted from seeds, fruits and other parts of plants, ordinary farm hands, for whom art is life is art, make patterns so geometrically intricate that perhaps even AI can't replicate them. Without modern technology, even a proper brush, they paint the most complex of designs and motifs that city slickers dub as art, but for them it's a way of life in an agrarian is habitual to call them variously: Jogi, Hasalaru or Deevaru, Budubudake, Maley or plain shikari. Among them, the Deevaru and their art Chittara is waiting to go national. Chittara is an embodiment of the Deevaru community's intrinsic socio-cultural framework. As the only indigenous mural folk art of Karnataka, Chittara deserves to be recognised as Karnataka's pride and India's heritage, say Geetha Bhat and Smitha Tumuluru in their 200-plus-page lavish tome titled Deevara The beauty of folk art lies in the ability of artists to interpret and reinterpret it. This is also key to its preservation and evolution, aver the is the catalyst, with her Centre for Revival of Indigenous Arts (CFRIA) in her hometown Bengaluru. She was mad and possessed about Chittara long before the word entered the lexicon of Unesco or the jargon of the Delhi sarkari culturatti. Her interface with the art form started 25 years ago and she has done yeoman service ever since in helping reach it as far as Japan and France, besides parts of India that still don't know where the Western ghats are!Geetha has done something practical for a dying art form of a region of Karnataka, and of India. She is doing for Chittara what Vallathol did for Kerala's theatre arts in the 1940s, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay did for the crafts in the 1950s, Pupul Jayakar did for weavers in the 1970s, Mohan Khokar did for dance in the 1980s, ITC and India Today did for music in the 1990s, and Sachchidanand Joshi of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), created by Kapila Vatsyayan, did for multi-disciplinary institutionalised right hand in this madness is Smitha, whose photography is a form of art. Here is a documenter with depth and substance. Namrata Cavale has given the overall design and branding tinge. Together the trio—call them the teen devian—has documented this lesser-known art form, the people and their culture in Deevara Chittara, published by Prism, whose Pranesh Sirivara is another low-key, high-quality lived and worked in all the Indian metros over the past 40 years, and some internationally too, I have found no other metro in India with such highly accomplished people as Bangalore, with the least attitude or arrogance. They don't need to show off or pretend, as they are secure in themselves. These are solid do-gooders like Geetha and Smitha whose role models were Vimala Rangachar, an educationist and art conservationist who passed away on February 25, or Chiranjiv Singh, the former Ambassador of India to Unesco in authors had got the most Jnanpith awards among all languages until 2005, when Hindi surpassed it. Need more be said of the literary or cultural quotient of this state? Among all Indian cities, Bengaluru has the most bookshops. It has been the science capital of India much before the IT and biotech boom, but it is also home to a rich cultural palette. All forms of classical, folk and modern dance exist here, not just one or two, as in the other metros. Theatre, both regional and national, films and architecture, the latest and maximum museums and libraries, cultural spaces and aquariums and theme parks. No wonder the traffic is a mess! The administration has not kept pace with the tremendous growth in the past decade alone. Still, it is a metro in a hill station!advertisementChittara is a symbol of the Malenadu region's rich culture and when a builder of the city—Aslam Zackria Sait, chairman of Rocklines—supports indigenous art, then it shows the high social and cultural index of the city. Add Redington Foundation and the Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation (KSTDC).The government of Karnataka should make Deevara Chittara available to every library in the country and in every embassy abroad in order to take cultural pride in a process unique to it. That the state's top folklorist, Padma Bhushan and Jnanpith awardee Chandrashekhar Kambara, was at hand to do the honours of unveiling the book on a cool Saturday morning (in May which other metro can boast of 3o degrees at noon?) in one of the oldest cultural halls of Bengaluru—the Indian Institute of World Cultures—showed the strength and pull of this team supported by many more artivists, artists and artocrats. Textile-lover Pavithra Muddaya opened the exhibition, which was first-rate in detailing, mounting and display. One has rarely seen a better exhibition aesthetically done with academic content in Bengaluru in the past the main artist, Shirvala Gowramma, had taken the first flight of in her life to reach the function showed the organisers' large heartedness and respect for an indigenous artist. A state award and a national award ought to follow for Geetha, if the government is at all serious about tribal cultures. Joining her were Gademane Padmavathy, Hecche Vishwanatha G. and Radha Sullur. All those senseless seminars and symposiums in Delhi and Mumbai are of no use if they don't help the real artists on ground.A dynamic three-term Prime Minister Narendra Modi has everything going for the country—all his government now needs is a cultural policy to help those who truly brand India. Not Bollywood or cricket but real, indigenous artists. That's when we would have truly arrived on the world writer is India's ace cultural historian, critic, arts policy expert and editor, attenDanceSubscribe to India Today Magazine- End
The Hindu
14-05-2025
- General
- The Hindu
City NGO committed to preserving Chittara folk art of Malnad's Deevaru community
Chittara (hase chitra) is an endangered folk art form practised by members of the Deevara community settled in the Malnad region, especially Shimoga, Sagara and Uttara kannada districts, of Karnataka. Giving extreme attention to details, colour, and symmetry, the art is a tribute to the Earth and its elements, while also being a testament to the deeply respectful and sustainable lifestyle of the community, according to Geetha Bhat, Founder, The Centre for Revival of Indigenous Art (CFRIA), a NGO which has been actively working to revive, restore and preserve Chittara and assisting thousands of artisans involved in this folk art form. 'Every aspect of the community - whether in the way they make use of natural resources, their rituals, or their art - is relevant to the present context, in terms of sustainability, eco-friendliness, and collaboration with the environment,' Bhat told The Hindu. This folk art involves intricate geometric patterns painted on walls, trays, bamboo or fibre baskets, and is deeply ingrained in the Deevara community's culture and traditions. The art form mostly depicts unity and celebration like festivals and weddings, according to her. CFRIA has organised a four-day exhibition which concluded on Tuesday (May 13) at Indian Institute of World Culture (IIWC) at Basavanagudi to showcase the nuggets, glimpses, impressions and knowledge the NGO gathered through interactions members of Deevara community of the Malnad region. 'At the exhibition, we were offering a true reflection of the life, culture and occupation of the Deevara community, through their ethnic folk art form, Chittara. It was the result of interactions with the community for 21 years and some three years of research and documentation,' she added. On the relevance of Deevara Chittara for the urban audience, Namrate Cavale, space curator of the exhibition said, 'It helps to look at the traditional knowledge systems around us, because it allows us to question our actions, its purpose, appreciate and revive these art forms, while also going back to our rich roots.'' Interestingly, although Chittara folk art works are so vibrant and colourful, only four colours, all natural, are used by artists for drawings. These are: red (red soil or crushed red stones), black (charcoaled rice or seed of a particular tree), white (rice flour) and yellow (gurige seed). Cavale further said, the curation allowed space to reflect on the materials used in creating the art, its significance within the culture, the pigments used and its origins, the traditional activities of the community and its representation in the art, and the importance of women in the rituals of the Deevara's. The exhibition also saw the launch of a coffee table book: Deevara Chittara-The Artform, the people, their culture, by renowned folklorist, poet, and Padma Bhushan awardee, Chandrashekhara Kambara. 'It is not just a coffee-table book. We want design schools, colleges and researchers to engage with the Deevara community and Chittara. So that the community gets its voice and Chittara some momentum,'' concluded Geetha.
Deccan Herald
11-05-2025
- General
- Deccan Herald
Folk wisdom and geometry meet in Deevaru mural tradition
CFRIA, a Bengaluru-based non-profit, has been working for over two decades to preserve traditional art forms, with a focus on Chittara. The new publication is intended as a resource for artists, scholars, and cultural institutions invested in indigenous knowledge systems.
