Unique stone sculpture of Baiga community is something striking

                     

How one can display the tribal art of mother and child filial love at its best through unique stone sculpture could be well learned from painter Ashish Kachhawaha. He has shown realistic work of art on stone to tell the saga of Baiga tribal’s lifestyle.

 The idol carved out of the stone dolomite (marble) in village Kakaiya near Bamhani, Mandla is a unique example of stone sculpture. He has shown the realistic work of art on stone and the beauty he carved out in this stone artifact cannot be fully compared with the beauty of a living being. It is a three-dimensional artifact. The stone art has been done by Ashish Kacchawaha and his team including Bhangi Lal Hardaha, Manoj Dwivedi, Ram Kumar Nanda, Bhupendra Yadavand Krishna Mahipal Yadav. It took six months to carve out idols displaying the traditions and culture of Baiga tribes. His stonework has become a point of attraction of people and it tells people in dept that how tribal lives, how they worship nature, and moreover, how much they revere tigers.

Ashish Kachhwaha has also expressed his feelings towards Baiga tribals on walls of Mandla (Nehru Park) spread in 4000 square feet area that also in three and half months. The most interesting feature is that the district administration and local municipality are bearing the cost of his project so that people can peep into the lifestyle of Baiga tribals. His paintings show that how Baiga tribals prefer to have tattoos on their body parts, how they live and how much they respect wildlife.

Ashish Kachhwaha is painting for Baiga tribal for the past 20 years as he is very close to the tribal community and loves their culture. His love and affection towards the Baiga drew his attention to have some art on stone.

“When I was a teenager, I used to visits markets with my grandmother where I observed the culture of Baiga tribals. They are very close to wildlife. They are spread over Satpura-Maikal landscape and they never harm big cats but we have misunderstood them” said Ashish Kachhawaha.

 He said that very few knew that Baiga tribals construe the leftover meat of killing of the tiger as “ Prasad” and they never harm feline. He said, however in today’s era people are luring Baiga and pressurizing them for tiger killing. He said Government should work towards the employment of the tribals and education of their kids so that they can continue their age-old tradition in intact form and do not get tempted by wildlife hunters.

Sharing his recent experience, Ashish Kachhwaha said a young scholar from France visited Mandala district for his research work. He researched the culture and lifestyle of Baiga and he became so close to the tribal that he left his mineral water and started drinking the water Baiga use to drink. Even the researcher started taking the local alcohol of Baiga and left his foreign brand. Ashish said, foreigners, have started understanding the culture of these tribals.

Ashish Kachhwaha has displayed his art in an exhibition at Pune that threw light on the culture of ancient tribal communities. He said Baigas are more civilized than the modern man. “I was attracted towards the community with their sweet coexistence with nature and wildlife. They always try to keep sticking to the knowledge of their ancestors. They share a deep and thoughtful bond with forest and their existence lies in jungles,” added Ashish.

Discussing his work, Ashish said the stone idol of a mother reflecting the lifestyle of the Baiga tribe is shown combing her small child baby with a comb while taking out the lice from her head, the baby child screams ‘A Dai O, O Dai’ and leaving her crying for her mother’s help. On listening to the screaming sound of her child, a mother with gleeful face repeats the word ‘O Dai, O Dai O’ recollecting the glimpse of her own mother.

In his other idol work, a little child playing near looks at her mother repeating ‘O Dai, O Dai O he’s speculating the imminent danger tries to reach the safe place like the lap of mother and gets into her mother’s lap putting her hand around her mother neck in embracing posture. Her gesture also keeps repeating ‘O Dai, O Dai O’ showing the child’s love for her mother.