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Chitrakathi Lakshmi puja

Leaves from a Pinguli Chitrakathi storyteller's book: Gajalakshmi with her elephants, two samais, and a family at Lakshmi puja with the new broom, coins and lahya-batasha.

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Chitrakathi is the picture-storytelling of the Thakar community of Pinguli, near Kudal in the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra. The storyteller carries a pothi, a bundle of painted paper leaves, and shows the pictures one after another while he sings episodes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to the beat of a huduk drum and cymbals. The paintings use earth and plant colours in flat fields, bold black outlines, figures in profile with large eyes, and a red border on every leaf. Gods, kings, animals and battles are painted in bold, simple shapes, so that listeners sitting far away can follow the story. The same community tells the same stories with leather and string puppets.

This film is made as such leaves: Gajalakshmi between two elephants, a pair of samais, and a family at Lakshmi pujan with the new broom, coins and lahya-batasha, as Maharashtrian homes keep it. Each leaf comes in from the side, as the storyteller shows the next picture, and everything on it is stamped on the beat of the drum. The paintings are drawn in the Chitrakathi style for this film; they are not by the artists of Pinguli.

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