Sohrai Dhanteras
A Sohrai mural of Hazaribagh, painted in earth colours on a kaolin wall: a decorated cow walks in, a pot of new paddy stands between two lamps, and Lakshmi holds sheaves of grain.
Free with a Snehpatrika ending · ₹99 without
Make this video inviteAbout this style
Sohrai is the wall painting of the Hazaribagh region of Jharkhand, made by women on the mud walls of their homes for Sohrai, the harvest festival that honours cattle around the time of Diwali. Before the festival the walls are freshly plastered with mud and painted with earth colours dug from the land around: red and yellow ochre, black from manganese and white from kaolin clay. The painters use their fingers, twigs and chewed sticks as brushes. Cattle, peacocks, elephants and plants fill the walls, their bodies patterned with lines and dots. In 2020 Sohrai and its sister art Khovar received a Geographical Indication tag.
This film paints such a wall for Dhanteras: a decorated cow walks in, a pot of new paddy stands between two lamps, Lakshmi holds sheaves of grain, and your family photo sits inside a painted border of zigzags and dots. The paintings are drawn in the Sohrai style for this film; they are not by the women painters of Hazaribagh.
More video invites
- Pichwai lotus pond
- Kandil night
- Warli night
- Gold foil midnight
- Rangoli courtyard
- Madhubani
- Kutch mirror-work
- Mid-century poster
- Tanjore gold
- Clay Diwali
- Paithani faral
- Faral kitchen
- Chitrakathi Lakshmi puja
- Ganjifa Lakshmi
- Rogan tree of life
- Jamnagar bandhani
- Mata ni Pachedi
- Sankheda shop front
- Wada dawn
- Sanskar Bharati rangoli
- Diwali killa
- Society kandils
- Pithora horses
- Patan patola
- Lippan mirror wall
- Ahmedabad pol
- Bombay Art Deco
- Layered paper-cut
- Linocut dinner table
- Sivakasi matchbox
- Phad Lakshmi puja
- Sanjhi Lakshmi
- Kangra Diwali Milan
- Kishangarh Govardhan
- Aipan Bhai Dooj