Characteristic to Madhubani art-style, the painting represents a series of visuals – festive womenfolk with trays in hands making offerings, enthused groups of men and women engaged in various activities, ladies readying elephants for rituals, and a lot of rustle and bustle, as also many motifs, connected to the festival of Chhata. A simple ritual of the erstwhile days, confined to a village in Bihar, Chhata is nowadays’ national festival and a matter of great pride for everyone of Biharis, rich or poor, in Bihar or anywhere in India, or even beyond. In Bihar, Chhata is as eagerly awaited as Diwali in other parts of the country, and is celebrated as solemnly and with as much gaiety, festivity and pump and show as Diwali. Bihar’s commitment to the festival of Chhata and its people’s enthusiasm is simply unique. In recent past, activists of an anti-Biharis political faction of Maharashtra declared that they would not allow Chhata-celebrations on their land. Provoked by it thousands of Biharis reached Mumbai, thronged its streets and celebrated their festival by making offering at its sea-shore.

Largely a secular or cultural event, Biharis have developed some kind of emotional attachment for the festival of Chhata compelling the Government of Bihar to notify it as a state level holiday, and even in private units, corporate or others, the day of Chhata is widely a non-functioning day. The Cultural Department of the Government of Bihar and many of its autonomous units not only facilitate Chhata’s smooth celebration but also organise collateral programs. In the Holiday schedule of the governments of many of the states in India Chhata is a sectional holiday for Biharis. Indian Railways make special arrangements for transporting Biharis to and fro, that is, to their homeland and back, for Chhata-rituals, sometimes by introducing holiday-trains and at other times by adding to the existing ones more coaches.

Chhata or sixth, as it literally means, is celebrated on the sixth day of the month of Kartika, broadly, October/November of the Common Era. It is also celebrated in the month of Vaishakha, that is, April/May. Primarily the festival of crops, celebrated when India’s major crops of Rabi and Kharif are harvested, through Chhata rituals the harvester expresses his gratitude to the Sun-god, the presiding deity of the festival, for giving him good crop. Initially the celebrations were centralized at Surajpur-Baragaon, a village in Bihar having a Sun-temple, where people gathered, bathed in its adjacent tank, and worshipped the Sun-god. The day-long activities and people’s gathering turned into a local fair with market potentials growing around and giving it the shape of a proper fair. In the course of time this cult of Sun-worship and associated festivities moved out of the village and the Sun-temple and became the essential culture of Bihar’s every part, and of every Bihari.

Objects like sugar-cane, sparklers, lamps in trays, elephants loaded with water-pots as if on way to goddess Lakshmi carrying water for her ablution, cut-off banana plants used for decorating doors on auspicious occasions among others suggest that the painting represents the Chhata occurring in the Diwali’s month which is Kartika. The painting has in its centre a rectangle bound by a proper frame. The rectangle contains seven women with trays carrying various fruits and vegetables in them. The east-facing, they are standing in knee-deep waters and are making offering by turning their trays into the pond. In context to the Sun their ‘seven’ number is quite significant. The Sun’s chariot is drawn by seven horses which are sometimes identified as seven days of the week through which the Sun moves. Around the rectangle are painted multifarious activities ranging from caressing a child or loading an elephant with water-pots to hawking goods or painting pots for sale, such as are seen in a village fair.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.

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