They are like this Warli

It all started four decades ago, in the early 70s. Pupul Jayakar, the cultural activist who revived many traditional Indian arts, along with her assistant Bhaskar Kulkarni, was on a voyage of rediscovery. They rediscovered the rich and colourful Madhubani art in north India, and then the spartan Warli art that shuns the use of all colours except brown and white.

Jivya Soma Mashe, an accomplished Warli artist of that time, was invited to New Delhi for a demonstration of his art. On a sheet of brown paper, Jivya drew the figure of Paalghaat, the Goddess of Fertility, sitting at the centre of an intricately drawn temple. However, when Jayakar prodded him to draw more visuals, Jivya drew a blank. He sheepishly admitted how that was all that every Warli artist could draw: the ritualistic drawing of the Goddess which is painted on the walls of a Warli house on the day of a wedding.

On my visit to Dahanu, Phiroza Tafti, the convenor of the Dahanu Chapter of INTACH, told me about how Jayakar encouraged Jivya to break convention and depict the rich mythology and evocative legends of his tribe in his inimitable style. Jivya went back to his village and meet fellow artists. Soon after, they began drawing thousands of distinctly different Warli paintings depicting their myths, folk tales and daily life. Warli art moved from depicting Gods to depicting mortals.

God in stone
Tafti took me around the padas (villages) of the Warli tribe. Tafti came to Dahanu many years ago, as a newly-wed, city-based rebel and made the chickoo orchard of her husband, Jehangir, home.

At Waghoba mandir, I saw idols carved on totem poles. The totem poles are relics from the pre-historic times and the idol was a symbol of their contact with the world. Historically, the Warlis never worshipped man-made idols. The shaman of the village, on his sojourn to the nearby hills, picked up rocks that spoke with him in positive tones. These were kept under trees and became places of worship. Over centuries, influenced by other religions,  temples were built around the stones.

Tribe of a few words
The Warlis are simple people with simple beliefs. According to art historian Yashodhara Dalmia, an expert on tribal anthropology, the Warlis are frugal in their habits and speech. So, before cooking supper, a Warli woman asks her family members how many bhakris each one of them would eat and makes only that many. When Dalmia asked the woman why she did it every day, she said, `These bhakris are cooked on the back of Kansaari, our Goddess of Harvest. Why give her more pain than what’s absolutely necessary?’

Warlis speak very little, almost in monosyllables. That’s because they believe that words have an uncanny habit of becoming real. So, they ensure they don’t speak anything untoward, lest it comes true.

hieroglyphic art
However, in sheer contrast to this frugality, every Warli artist pours his heart out in his paintings. Though the figures are devoid of much detail and colour like cave paintings, they are surprisingly rich in their choice of subjects: human figures in various situations, gods, trees, plants, and wild and domesticated animals. Even a minute ant finds place in their paintings. As Dalmia puts it: `They are rich, yet hieroglyphic in effect.’

Yashode, Tafti’s Warli maid of 30 years, showed us around the village. She was, perhaps, more ‘Warli’ than most: while I drove, she just pointed her hand to the left or the right without speaking a word!

Yashode took us to the house of Jaanu Ravte, a promising, young Warli painter. Ravte took me to his studio, which he shares with six other artists of his co-operative. After a cup of tea, he took me around his house that was barely lit by a skylight on the tiled roof, and a lone, small window. Walls like his, smeared with mud and cow dung, were the original canvas of Warli art. Staring at that dingy wall, I understood why the Warlis don’t use colour but only a white, rice-based paint to create their art. The sparkling white of the rice paint gleams in the barely-lit house, catching the faintest of sunrays. This gives the painting an ethereal feel. Jaanu’s hand is an extension of his mind, and his brush an extension of his hand. He started out with a basket and, around it, he weaved a tapestry of Warli life, all in a swirl of perpetual motion.

Today, in response to the growing market for Warli art, many villages have taken up Warli painting. But, in many cases, the raw, creative energy has been replaced by static, decorative motifs. It underlines the fact that a painting becomes a work of art only if it is created by the forces inside, not the forces outside.