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Mahasundari and Family

"Namastee! I am Mahasundari Devi. I don't remember when exactly I was born but I am around 84 years old. I was born in the Madhubani district of Bihar. My parents expired when I was barely able to know the meaning of parents. After their death, my brother and I were brought up by my uncle and aunt.

"I was barely six when I first learn how to create Madhubani paintings. In our village, it was a tradition for everyone to learn painting. In those days, we used to paint on the floors and walls of our mud houses. During festivals, the elders would decorate the temples with Madhubani paintings. I had the opportunity to study through the 6th standard. Back in those days, there were no motor vehicles and hence I used to go to school on foot and sat on the floor with the other students.

"Madhubani painting depicts the culture and tradition of the people of Mithila [a scholastic and cultural center in Bihar that traces its lineage of arts from epic times]. It also portrays the deities in all their manifestations. And this was translated into the paintings as a form of tribute to the gods. Another interesting tradition was that a new bride would wear a sari with Madhubani paintings when she went to her groom's home for the first time.

"Earlier, only women and girls would paint and it was purely for the sake of hobby and tradition. In 1960, a gentleman from Bombay came to our village. He saw the talent and gave me colors and paints. When he returned, he saw my work and was thrilled. He gave me ten dollars each for four of my paintings. The value of ten dollars was too much those days. I refused to take the money but he insisted that he was paying me for the hard work I had put into creating them. It was my first sale.

"Later, I started organizing the women and girls of our village and taught them the art. And with the help of everyone, I was able to form a society to promote the unique art of Mithila in 1979. In this way, I was able to help the village womenfolk's economy grow. I began exhibiting my work around the country and also had the opportunity to show my paintings in Japan and Mauritius.

"Over the years, I have also been honored with the Bihar State Award, the Bihar State Master Craft Award, the National Tulsi Samma Award and the National Mithila Chitra Kala Nagarjuna Award, among many others.

"Today, I work along with my children and grandchildren. It is a great feeling to be able to paint even at this age. I have so many descendants who can carry on our rich family tradition."

Mithila paintings – alternately called Madhubani paintings – are a folk tradition kept alive by women in northern Bihar. They depict events from epic, mythology and traditional designs on their floors and walls of their houses using crushed wet rice and natural colors. From this age old tradition stemmed the practice of drawing Mithila paintings on a canvas of hand-made paper or pure mulberry silk fabric using natural colors and fabric dyes. Brush, sharpened reeds and pen nibs are used.