Three lineal threads of Bhaktapur

The children of Bhaktapur were apparently born to have stone lions and griffins as their playthings. These little ones never run short of playmates and their playgrounds are not restricted to the fences or walls of their homes.

These adorable kids seemingly have their noses running through all the four seasons as they grow up with the least of inhibitions and in seclusion. Mounting on the ever-willing backs of these mighty and mythological creatures, these guileless inhabitants of this exclusive city amuse and hearten many an onlooker.

With neighbours not even an arms length away, with ample playmates and extraordinary playthings, these naïve beings in a way are lucky. Quite noticeably, they represent the bright and vivacious colours woven into the fabric of all Bhaktapurean’s lives. However, the stronger and the more unnoticeable colours that support this bright yet delicate fabric are none other than the destined artisans and craftsmen singing life into this world of aesthetics. Their lineal profession has come a long way, measuring the changes brought about by the times.

The craft of woodcarving running through generations here appears as primordial as the blood in the veins. Surrounded by these crafted wooden objects or, at the very least, with the paraphernalia that goes with this profession, this ingenious art seems to be their first choice. Consequently, we are confronted with the unique rhythmic sound amidst the spacious Durbar Square area or in the enclosed household yards signifying wood work in progress. 35 year old Baykuntha Prasad Shilpakar, one of the city’s renowned woodcarvers meets the forwarded question with a smile and replies, "I have been doing this work since I was 15 and I solely and wholly learnt it from my parents".

Shilpakar Wood Carving Centre is the commercial outcome of his lineal profession, and is located in a narrow lane south of the Durbar Square gate. After learning the secrets of the trade from his parents, Shilpakar no longer wishes to keep them a secret but wants to share it with others as well, as he quite convincingly says, "I offer apprenticeship to people outside my family circle as well".

Despite the general negative notion, the art of woodwork is not destined to die as they unfailingly pass on their skills to their children and siblings, be they educated or not. However the unsaid but understood is spoken by Shilpakar himself as he confesses, "there will be a bit of a difference in the style though". The art, which took its roots from the Lichhavi era and was refined and developed during the architectural Malla era, seems to have undergone changes in terms of catering to its target customers. In bygone days, they used to cater selectively to the government and private homes whereas today there seems to be no limitations in terms of the target customers.

Whoever can afford can get the things for themselves, of the quality and the style they wish to possess. The other difference lies in the way the work is carried out as he points out quite subtly, "Now we use different designs and techniques unlike our forefathers who never made use of any technique or for that matter the simplest of equipment like pencils to mark with. They just did what they could visualize in their minds". The woodworkers here largely depend on orders, which come through the middlemen businessmen. These orders are eventually exported.

"The art of carving is the sole way of earning for they are and also those who have lately switched on to this art to make a supposedly lucrative living." The Shilpakar caste is totally dependent on this work. However, when they run short of orders, the same supposedly lucrative job becomes a meagre source of sustenance for them. It is then that this hardworking and creative caste turns to the woodcraft shops to get their workpieces sold. There are also the closed and willingly unexposed woodworkers who relentlessly and dedicatedly work day and night in the seclusion of their houses. For these people an urge to make an extra buck or more out of it has rarely taken birth. They seem to be conditioned by and content with the practice of working doggedly, to get their finished piece sold ultimately.

According to Shilpakar, windows are the most saleable items these days and that includes peacock windows exclusively. Working everyday of the week, with Classic FM playing in the background, Shilpakar prepares one peacock window a month and if it sells it he earns Rs15000 to Rs16000. The wood for the purpose, mainly Sal and Sisaw, comes from the Terai, Jhapa, Dang and Chitwan.

He claims that there are 15 to 16 people like him in the whole of Bhaktapur who have opened their shops. Otherwise there are many of them working from their homes. The oldest person specializing in this trade is 90-year-old Shiva Lal Shilpakar.

Another popular craft running through families is Thanka painting. Madhu Krishna Chitrakar, an established Thanka painter has travelled to many countries spreading this fine art. He has also held exhibitions of his work and proudly says, "Our documents and manuscripts reveal that this art has been in our family for about 260 years." He says that Thanka painting has been with him since his childhood. Even though their children are well educated they have not kept them away from this hereditary art. Chitrakar’s daughter is gradually and tentatively following her father’s footsteps apart from pursuing a normal education in college. This art of painting seems to be the dignified source of
sustenance for the Chitrakars as much as for the Tamangs who specialize in this art too.

Potters are the most deprived and ill paid of the lot. They are the only group for whom a lineal profession has not proved to be quite a blessing at least in terms of sustenance. They complain that the money earned through this art is not enough. Though the products so far produced do sell, the money they get is too little. Indra Prasad Prajapati, a potter, complains that recently clay needed for the purpose is creating a problem. "Nowadays it’s difficult getting the clay with people building houses in the area where we have been getting the clay from for ages", he says. "If the problem continues this art might just disappear", adds Prajapati. Coin collecting vessels is a highly saleable product whereas foreigners mostly buy clay elephants and pen stands. The potters here agree to have brought some changes in their designs e.g. the candle stands. According to one potter their current market extends to Kathmandu, Banepa and Dhulikhel.

People from all age groups -generally from 6 to 90- are involved in pottery work, woodcarving and Thanka painting. They work continuously and untiringly for all 7 days of the week depriving themselves of a holiday and yet there are some still living almost below the poverty line. There seems to be no means left to motivate these diligent people, to encourage them to innovate or to better themselves in their skill. Though they work consistently and devotedly, not everyone earns enough from their work, especially the potters of Bhaktapur.

master tabla blaster

It was pure demonstration.

And the end of the concert provoked instant standing ovation as Zakir Hussain, Ustad Sultan Khan were handed bouquets of flowers on stage as the show closed. And if you were there you could’ve sworn someone whisper those are demon fingers blessed, long and hard as drumsticks battling in the kurukshetra of world music.

It was Zakir Hussain’s night.

Lost in the steel-pounding rhythms of his fingers and palms I thought of Suren somewhere in the jam-packed crowd; Manose sitting up front, on the stairs right next to the proscenium, with his girlfriend, and us, ripping pages out of Anita’s notebook to scratch out our words in the dim underwater light of the Royal Academy.

As Ustad Khan, with a sore throat (mumbling apologies), stumbled into the hit song Piya Basanti, Zakir Hussain nursed Khan’s voice along, helping him to reach the right notes. And this was at the death, after the standing ovation. Hussain’s on-stage presence remarkable, exact and efficient.

Speaking in parallel with the haunting gypsy strains of Ustad’s Sarangi, playing the accompanying ragh movements, Hussain’s fingers moved in a flurry of hits on the tabla gradually making the tal sound as if one gigantic wave sound crashing onto the shores of our unremarkable minds.

Somewhere in the show he deconstructed the whole thing, demonstrating to the audience the parts of his percussive music that make the whole thing sound as if no different to the parts that make up the whole to the untrained ear.

He brought the audience in, joking with them, allowing them to participate. What sounded as esoteric became starkly obvious in his hands, manipulating the tal until the full obvious force of the tabla’s language of expressions was made to stand out as it is.

The voices of Radha and Krishna in fully human domestic concert were wittily dramatised on his tabla, each phrase of drumming (one phrase for Radha’s questions, the other for Krishna’s answers) singled out to show how the essential parts question and answer each other. Giving the audience a story for the music.

His fingers and hands moved lightening fast, hard and supple, to give the audience more pictures, the sound and speed of a train (which he called a rela) with whistles, the reverberation of motorbikes, an ex maharaja’s dream-fancy of leaping deers, scurrying rabbits and bounding lions all done to the supreme pleasure of the crowd.

During another pause, he explained, divinity, scriptures were the roots of the phrases of movements clicking together, fingers making the connection of clicks which even dolphins would perhaps take to heart, understanding, in their deep underwater blue the phraseology of the clicks, and, just to prove how inseparable they were from first utterances formed by lips, he recited some shlokas "Gananatha Gananatha Gananatha, Ganesha Gananatha", making the corresponding clicks on the tabla.

"Music has blessings of divinity. Lord Shiva drove the asuras (demons) away and he played the damaru and soon Ganesh developed the first syllables on his instrument Pakhawaj. We’re trying to play that, mixing old as well as new compositions" he said as the click refined by Ganesh to sound like the conch shell reverberated right into the inner ear.

It was a cool performance worthy of a maestro with the audience in the palm of his hand. He could’ve played whatever he wanted to play and the audience would’ve still sat there as if spellbound, lapping everything up. Maybe he has earned that kind of fawning gratitude, that right, just to be there, in front, on stage. He does not have to try that hard for he has already carved out an eternal niche for himself. He can give us what he wants, and whatever it is, we shall still just take it without even saying, hey, this was not it. This was not it at all. But, man, it was something.

The BPKF concert was presented by the B.P. Koirala India-Nepal Foundation, Kathmandu, last Tuesday, in association with the Indian council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi and the Embassy of India.

to make it new: contemporary art

Ajit Baral

The 31st National Arts and Craft Exhibition kicked off at last on 26th of January. This once a year gala generated lots of excitement in the artistic circles. And every imaginable artist—from Mechi to Mahakali—participated in the exhibition. There were 332 art works on display to be appreciated by a not-very-large and sadly not-very-appreciative audience. But young and upcoming artists were also included in the show, which made it worthwhile. These were the highlights of the exhibition organised by the Nepal Association of Fine Arts.

There’s an interesting mix of paintings on display: from paintings done traditional styles to more innovative and contemporaneous styles. But most of the works are realistic and figurative. And this surfeit of realism in Nepali paintings drew an interesting reaction from four artists— from India, Netherlands and Germany— whom I met at Nepal Art Council hall. They were working with great creative surge on their paintings for the grand finale to be held soon. The preponderance of figurative paintings in Nepal, they seem to imply, owed to the fact that Nepali art is mediocre. Then again, they are all abstract painters, whose work is quite different from that of most of their Nepali counterparts at the show. It’s not surprising that their favourite works were by Krishna Manandhar and Uttam Nepali, who are senior abstract painters.

It is impossible to go through all the paintings leisurely and explore them and even more impossible to talk about the style, leit motif, etc., here; there are so many of them. But a cursory look at the paintings reveal that a majority of them are not of the kind that you would really associate with experimental paintings, though some interesting works are done in mixed media. They are rather an ordinary and trusted and one- is- used -to - painting kind of stuff. So despite the number of participants and the paintings, they don’t make us go ga-ga over them.

Sunita Rana won the contemporary second prize. The painting that won her a prize is mysterious despite being figurative. And she has successfully created depth through contrast and superimposition of huddled figures over another. Nabindra Man Rajbhandari’s painting that won contemporary third prize evokes a textural feel. The one that won the first prize, however, is a sculpture. Why would anyone lump sculpture and paintings in the same category? That’s hard to understand. This exhibition has paintings of senior artists in ‘Not for Competition’ category. Like, Shashi Shah’s one of those paintings of baying, and legs flaying horses that he has been so enamoured with; Uttam Nepali’s streaky paintings that he has fallen into of lately, Manoj Babu Mishra’s bordering on intellectual type of paintings. But Bangdel’s painting of a faintly visible woman, her head draped in a sari, done brown, grey colour comes as a disappointment. Not because it is really bad, but because he is the best thing that has happened to Nepali art and we expect him to set a high standard for younger artists. It is really sad that many artists have put their old paintings on show. And chief among them is none other than the academician Vijaya Thapa. We saw his paintings, that are in this show, on his last exhibition just a month or two ago. Can anyone expect us the audience to go to exhibition halls time and again to witness the same old paintings. There must be something new for the audience to explore, to hold their attention. And then only can artists carp about the absence of audience.

NAFA tends to brow beat every time it organises the National Art and Craft Exhibition as if this is the one thing that Nepali art was waiting for and one that will push Nepali art into new heights. And it makes a point to remind us, through brochures of course, what a glorious artistic past we have and what NAFA and King Birendra did to uplift the state. But the brochure never mentions about what contemporary Nepali art is like? Where it is heading? What is the Nepali idiom of expression? Things like that.

What I purport to say by pointing out the weaknesses is, organising one exhibition like this once or twice a year is not quite enough to lift the standard of Nepali art. Other things have to go along with these events. For example, a good selection mechanism has to be in place so that only really good works come through for the exhibition. What is happening is that every Tom, Dick and Harry of Nepali art can exhibit their works. The selection procedure should be so strenuous that the selection of paintings itself (and not only the winning awards) becomes a matter of prestige. This would provide incentives to work hard.

And these exhibitions should be accompanied by vigorous debates on the works put on display. Artists whose works have been selected should be asked to come over and express their thoughts and interact with other fellow artists. And learned artists like Lain Singh Bangdel, or, artists and art critics outside of Nepal should be asked to put forth their opinion of art on display and art in general. All these will help artists to widen their understanding of art.

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