A
Bhil Story
Text
and visuals: Sher Singh Bhil and Nina Sabnani
Tulika
Publishers. 2015. Paperback. Colour. Rs. 175. 32 pages. English. Age: 5+
ISBN:
935046628-7
Folk tales take us back
to our roots, to ancient wisdom, often to common sense. Some memorable versions
of Nani’s or Ajji’s tales illuminate the trail of Indian children’s publishing
over the past two decades – such as Gita Wolf’s ‘A Very Hungry Lion,’ Vayu Naidu’s ‘A Curly Tale’, and Shobha Vishwanath’s ‘The Blue Jackal.’ Retold with finesse, each has an inbuilt rhythmic
narrative that is in sync with the spoken word, a grandmother’s way of evoking
time and place.
‘A Bhil Story,’ in a
nutshell, is about how the parched village of Jher in Madhya Pradesh searches
for water. Its dramatic personae include Sher Singh, wise Bhuri Bai, a rooster
with a flair for drama, and the local badwa or shaman, who can divine water
sources.
The book was sparked by
a workshop at the Industrial Design Centre at IIT, Bombay, supported by the Tata
Centre for Technology and Design. As a follow up, film-maker/ illustrator/
animator Nina Sabnani led a team to Jhabua district in Madhya Pradesh, in the
footsteps of Bhil artist Sher Singh.
The tale was first
realized as an animated film, voiced by the villagers. It was later reborn as
this book. Sher Singh’s pithora paintings – akin to prayers in the Bhil
community, with each dot evoking an ancestor – are bright, tantalizing, deeply evocative.
Each dot or line is a call to the imagination as they morph into a person or an
animal, each frame is infused with movement. For the reader, his is a call to explore,
to ‘read’ the pictures and between each frame.
The relationship of
visual to real life grows richer once we realize that Sher Singh, as a child of
seven, learnt to paint from his mother Bhuri Bai. (Is hers a common name among
the Bhils? Is this a true story from their lives?) By 15, he had graduated from
walls to canvas, and evolved an individual colour palette.
As I read this book
through four times over, my eyes danced with delight over Sher Singh’s images. In
one corner, two wild-haired heads look goggle-eyed into the text. Across
another spread, meandering villagers with pots move towards a little bird that
symbolizes hope. They follow a ribbon of water till they find an overflowing
pot under a badwa with a dholak. His advice to the villagers is simple: go home
and paint trees on your walls.
That, say Bhil folks,
is how the tribals began to paint – and how they had enough water ever after. This
origin tale points to sound environmental logic – with enough trees planted, we
can save the parched earth and ourselves.
Within the Bhil
community, we know that sacred Pithora paintings signify happiness, peace and
prosperity. They are a must at weddings, childbirth and festivals, doubling as a
visual spell to heal sick children or cattle. The local badwa, when called in
to mediate with Pithora Baba, often suggests a painting as an offering.
Sher Singh’s art teems
with life. It is pristine, primal, yet sophisticated, dancing to a secret rhythm. If only the folktale retold here had
responded to its call. Instead, lost in translation, the text proves lacklustre,
even bordering on the pedestrian.
This sparked a slew of
questions:
Was the text a literal
translation of the Bhil tale from Jher village? Could editorial intervention
have enhanced its rhythm to bring it alive in English? Why is the story less playful
than its latent humour suggests? Would the use of more local Bhil words with
Word Bird notes as in earlier Tulika books have helped? Would creative use of typography
have proved the right match for Sher Singh’s singing pictures? Could a better
designer have worked magic? Such dynamic visuals, we realize, could have told
the tale on their own.
This book is disappointing
because of how exceptional each of Nina Sabnani’s earlier books for Tulika
were. Remember ‘Mukand and Riaz,’ ‘Stitching Stories’ and ‘My Gandhi Story’?
In this case, between
the art and the story falls the shadow. No matter what the answers to these questions,
this is a far cry from the best of Tulika.
.....
Originally published on the GoodBooks blog:
http://goodbooks.in/node/7307
