Beads of lore.

                                           
                                            Aka men in tradzy beads

                                    Women with painted faces in all their finery.

                                        Haggling over bride price using twigs.

Sleepless  roosters crowed, stray dogs barked ,cool winds gusted into the mountains making Nimasow shiver as he sat collecting the ritual items: a tigers claw, a pythons jaw, a crystal quartz and other objects that are a part of a Shaman’s kit. He has a ritual to perform today since the village is abuzz about the spirits being unhappy. The harvest has not been good this year.

Nimasow , as his father before, is the Shaman in the tiny village of Palizi, a rustic hamlet on the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh. He belongs to the Aka tribe, which is one of the last isolated tribes of these hills .They are a community of self sufficient set of people who have certain similarities to other Buddhist tribes of Arunachal. The tribe grows its own rice, vegetables, fruits , rear their own hogs and breed cattle, build their houses on silts and speak a unique dialect. It’s a utopian setting untouched by the outside world where life is still primitive and unengineered.

Nimasow is affectionately referred to as ‘Mucrow’ by his people-a term of endearment and apart from his shaman status, he is well known to have a collection of necklaces of yellow stone beads. Now, the Aka have more than 26 words to relate to the beads. Beyond being objects of adornment, beads are a status symbol and even play the part of currency for purchase or exchange. In one of its varied important forms , it is the dowry parents will give their daughters when she becomes a bride, and men of this village will adorn themselves with beaded necklaces on special occasions to show off their status- as Nimasow today. These necklaces are simply made out of yellow stones that used to be found in the river nearby. But now those stones are no longer found and the necklaces have become a precious commodity that the Aka people have inherited from their elders. They believe these necklaces embody the deified spirits of their ancestors.

When I first saw an Aka necklace, I could see certain design similarities to the prayer beads we Tibetans wear but looking closely I realized that it’s a unique artifact having symbolic representation. It stands for a way of life centuries old. The way our ancestors lived when the world to them was flat and sustainability was got from ones immediate surroundings. There has always been a huge connection between people and their landscape and the beads represent that connection by beautifying and also running the economy of this tribe. At a time when rest of the world is committing ecocide, I sit writing about a tribe where men and nature exist in harmony-a race so precious that I had to document them in my blog so people can read about the Aka tribe and their precious beads.

Raja and his terracotta plates....

After a tiring week of flying I found myself on a train heading to Shantiniketan with a friend. As the defecated city landscape waned, green paddy fields, little huts and nature in all its bounty emerged. It is said Maharishi Debendranath Tagore found the town Bhubandanga peaceful, hence named it Shantiniketan and at a time in my life where peace was what I was searching, I found myself in a town that promised it. As I walked with the rusty red earth beneath my feet, I looked around with immense pleasure in my heart. There were huge banyan trees that had children swinging from it, students cycling on the roads with green foliage all around. I was in Rabindranath Tagore’s haven of art and literature, a precious relic of our Indian history which still survives and carries on the Patha Bhavana legacy of Tagore’s school of ideals.

But this blog is not about Tagore instead about a chance encounter I had with an artist at a studio in Shantiniketan. After taking in the sights and sounds of the famous Kala Bhavan and meeting various young artists who are paving their way into the art world, I was in absolute awe. Here I was meeting free thinkers amalgamating what they were taught with their individual thoughts to create a new impression in the Indian art scene. We were invited to their studio to look at their works. Huge canvases were on display as a testament of the artist’s sweat and hard-work, from tea-stained pixel art to modern contemporary art, all trying to state its creators mind. Bound by the limits of my understanding I started moving through each artist’s station taking in all that was displayed. Then in one corner I saw Mr Raja aka Rajendra Kumar Pradhan deeply engrossed in his work. Holding a brush,his hand steadily moved across his blue painting, I watched him work silently too scared to disturb a man engrossed in his art. Beside him there were certain terracotta plates that caught my eye. Now, images do not change the world, but they certainly provoke reactions in people and I was completely taken in by what I saw--beautiful images depicting scenes from the epic battle of Mahabharata, Maa Durga standing in all her glory, her multiple hands all stretched out radiating ‘shakti’(powerful strength),our Indian gods, goddesses, warriors and demons of yore all sketched and posing in circular plates of clay. I waited as its maker silently looked up at us from his work and stood to greet us with his hands folded into a 'namaste'. I instead reached out and shook Raja’s hand and decided that kriya kalash had to display this artist’s work. We are dealing with artifacts and terracotta plates made by this shantiniketan artist needed a larger audience. So here I am writing about Raja and his painted plates. If my readers like these plates kindly contact us at kriyakalash@gmail.com.