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Alpona and Chittagong Ailbana

Research · November 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18237.28645

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Alpona and Chittagong Ailbana
Sanjoy Chakraborty (Translated by – Nubia Nurain Khan)
Visual Artist & Writer.
Assistant Professor
Department of Art History,
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

On 17th December 1915, Rabindranath Tagore wrote to the Professor Surendranath Dasgupta of
Chittagong, ``Can you collect me, all the womanly art that are common in Chittagong? Can you
send me the alpona on a paper that they draw in Lakshmi puta and weddings? Vintage classics
are required." Though his own art and literary work bore little resemblance to traditional
literature and artifacts of the land, Rabindranath's interest in folk art had clearly been reflected in
this letter. His endeavor in Santiniketan for alpona played a catalytic role in shaping the taste of
the newly emerged literati in colonial India. The art which was hidden from the public eyes and
was cultivated in the homes of Bengal, Rabindranath was inspired by it and in his own
institution, Visva-Bharati at Santiniketan ensured its application on various occasion. Kobiguru
('master of poets' in translation, an epithet by which many referred to him) started to contemplate
the beauty and significance of folk art, an act that went against the mainstream. Educated
Bengali society laying such an appreciation eye on the rural arts was something of an anomaly.
The literary movement which sought to imbibe in the educated Bengali society a sense of
identity had commenced from and was centered around Santiniketan. To this day the way
Rabindranath appreciated alpona of Chittagong origin remains an unusual act, its match was
very hard to find in his time.

There is a strong connection between the fertility of the arable lands and alpona. On the one
hand, alpona is drawn as part of the festivities of the Lakshmi puja and, on the other, its
fundamental element is rice. The alpona tradition of Bengalis began centering on the Lakshmi
puja of Kojaagari Purnima (harvest festival celebrated on the full moon day of the Hindu lunar
month of Ashvin), however, alpona's existence can also be found in other votive offering and
sacred rites apart from Lakshmi puja. An essential part of Bengali brata, alpona comes from the
Sanskrit word 'alimpan' which means overlaying. In the past, this form of art was probably
associated with farm life, and from the‘aal’ (Bengali for dyke) of farming fields the word alpona
originated. The name alpona in Chittagong is locally known as 'ailbana' which reveals this
particular connection, even though Prodyot Ghosh finds it hard to accept. But before even finally
deciding to accept such a proposition, we need to have detail discussions on its accuracy. The
synonyms of the word alpona in Indian subcontinent are, rangoli in Maharashtra, rangoli and
mathia in Gujrat, saanjhi in Uttar Pradesh, aripana in Bihar, kolam in South India, and alpona in
Kumaon. Three types of alpona are there -- realistic, decorative and symbolic. Regarding the
ancestry of using symbols in images, Swati Ghosh writes, the existence of alpona, symbolic
signs or tables in cave walls of Aravalli Range, Rajasthan is worth mentioning. Using symbols in
alpona is very prominent, for example, ''overflow of rice grain from granary will cause the birds
come and have it, and that is why bird footprints are drawn around the granary', meaning there
will be such abundance of rice growth that there will be overflow at the barn and birds will have
it.' By drawing bird footprints around the storehouse, the superfluity of rice grain is symbolized,
because the abundance of rice grain is the symbol of copiousness. In that case, the birds that
come to granary bring the news of bounty, too. We can observe its parallel in Chittagonion
ailbana. When spattered rice is used to make impressions on the surfaces of the entire house with
fingers, it symbolizes the prosperity of the home. When Lakshmi's footprint is drawn in the
spattered rice of the alpona, it completes the appearance of Lakshmi, who is the symbol of
prosperity.
Due to evolutionary impacts of humans, for the discovery of farming in the Neolithic period,
imagery style has changed. When men started living around the arable lands instead of caves, he
needed not use the then realistic animal imageries but he got accustomed to it. So they began
drawing on the home walls, besides, the style and subject matter of their drawing changed, too.
Thus the symbolic images started to replace the realistic images. Moreover, by then their taste in
food was changed too. Grain became the fundamental element of human subsistence instead of
animal flesh. Though food gathering was less life-threatening compared to hunting, the sense of
uncertainty was still there. Natural disasters like drought, absence of rain, excessive rainfall,
storm, flood etc. including attacks of marmots and pests were the main obstacles for crop
production. As a result, they needed to worship the infallible power related the destiny,
uncertainty and providence, which they were already accustomed to in the previous lifestyle
based on hunting and gathering. Only the image of god had to be changed and that happened,
too. Sri Pallab Sengupta wrote in his ‘Meyeli Brote Alponar Itihaash' that, the particular
mentality that was active behind ancient paintings is still present in alpona. And as before it is
related to ‘good wishes’, an aspect which is constitutive of its characteristic. Believing in magic
is its main afflatus. This inspiration led people to create many rituals of puja. In some cases,
these magical rituals are performed without any particular idol, as in the Lakshmi puja of
Chittagong. Here, the centre of activities is the granary, and four other small granaries around it.
The stage (asana) for Lakshmi, is generally made using the wooden household seat. First a white
canvas is made on the stage after applying thick layer of pithuli (traditional rice cake), and then
colourful designs are drawn over it using multiple colours. Use of colour red, blue, yellow, green
etc. are most popular in such decoration; besides, lotus and other vegetal ornamentation are
mentionable among the patterns that are made. A lotus is drawn in the center of the stool's
surface and other vegetal patterns are drawn surrounding it. Puja's largest granary is placed in the
main lotus, so that five married women, covering their heads with veil and while chanting, could
fill the sholapith-made granary with rice grains. Then a sholapith-made umbrella is shoved into
the granary, which is locally called 'Lakshmi's umbrella'. There's also a tradition for placing two
chips of gold and silver, or some jewellery into the granary. The whole seat is completed when
two newly sprouted seedlings of rice, which locally is called 'jala', are placed on the two sides of
the main granary. This jala is collected from the rice grains that were kept beneath Mangal Ghat
(pitcher of purity) of Durga Puja. Accordingly, when Lakshmi's seat is finally completed,
through various rituals, designs are drawn on the ground stretching from the seat to the main gate
of the house.
Prodyot Ghosh writes, 'Like the alpona method of Bengal, in West Gujrat, Tamilnadu etc.
women with their three fingers (thumb, forefinger and middle finger) swiftly and dexterously
spatter powder of long-grain rice on wet floor to make them stick on it. In Chittagong alpona
too, married women use their fingers, but here the tradition is to spare thumb and little finger;
again, sometimes, they only spare the thumb while executing alpona. Besides, for alpona,
geometrical pattern is a major characteristic of Chittagonion alpona; dots, little lines, spatter of
 colour, circular motifs like twisted jilapi (a type of sweet), and drawing Lakshmi's feet with hand
imprints etc. are worth mentioning. The use of little lines to depict rice or rice grain, which is
noticeable in Chittagong alpona, is almost of the same characteristic of what Swati Ghosh
mentioned in her book to explain the primitive nature of alpona.
In India, the method of makingland-art or land designing can be divided into two part, first one is
done in a wet method, which we know as alpona; and the second one is called rangoli or
rangabali, which is created using dry color powder. In the western India, rice powder is used for
making dry land-art, and in the east part, i.e. in Bengal, alpona is given in wet technique. Swati
Ghosh wrote in her 'Santiniketane Alpona' that, 'Gauri (Gauri Bhanja) began her alpona learning
lessons in Kala Bhavana (Santiniketan) from Sukumari Devi. Gauri not only mastered
Sukumari's indigenous method of alpona making, but she also learned the basic grammar from
her. A little piece of cloth or cotton ball is first soaked in the pithuli, then is held between middle
finger and thumb. When the pithuli is squeezed by the pressure of thumb, its liquid comes down
and reach the tip of the middle finger. Then the finger directs it in the artistry of line.' Though
Sukumari Devi comes to Santiniketan from East Bengal, her method of making alpona is not the
only technique of wet alpona; we can observe exceptions in the method of making Chittagong
alpona, in which the housewife uses only her fingers to create alpona, and she continually dips
her fingers in the mix and finishes the alpona. The most widely used technique of Chittagong
alpona is to make little lines on the ground continually dipping four fingers in the batter sparing
the thumb, or, doing the same just sparing thumb and the little finger. The whole alpona forms a
congealed web as the prints are usually created with three or four marks together. These marks
are successively drawn horizontally and vertically. I think this particular type of alpona from
Chittagong is probably throwback to the ancient practices of the Australoid people. Because,
firstly, Atul Sur demonstrates in his 'Ethnic Identity of Bengalis' that, Bengalis adopted various
types of strictures, magical faith, and the knowledge of rice cultivation, and astrology etc. related
to food, from the primitive Australoid aborigines. Besides, after-30,000 years ago, primitive
Australoid people left southern India, went to Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Melanesia, and then
reached Australia in the end. Chittagong can easily be seen as a stopover for these migrating
people, the very essence of alpona-making shown here testifies to their kinship to ancient
practices. However, there are others who opinion that alpona is the result of Austric cultural
expansion throughout the entire south-east Asia region in prehistoric time. Thus, it is very logical
to think that the method and technique of our ancestral Austric art practices of thousands of years
ago has evolved and in Chittagong alpona what is discovered is the ramnant of such practices.
What inspired such fecund imagination is the strange correspondence of Chittagong alpona with
the Australian aboriginal ritual art practices.

Published - 1st Karnaphuli Folk Triennial Publication, Chittagong, Bangladesh

&
Kolal, a research Journal, 2015, West Bengal, India

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