For the last three years, a woman in her early-70s, sometimes on her own and sometimes with an associate, has been creating pieces of art using the traditional alpona in Kolkata.
A week or two ahead of Kali Puja and Diwali, even before Kolkata has woken up for another day in its life, Ratnabali Ghosh is on the streets designing alponas in front of the homes and doors of strangers, who do not even know the artist, who has turned their homes, their neighbourhood into a beautiful piece of art.
Yet another house undergoes Ghosh’s magical transformation
“I want the people to derive joy from seeing the alpona and the city to look beautiful,” the 72-year-old Ghosh told The Telegraph Online. “As a child, I saw my mother applying alpona and I joined her too. Growing up into a woman and in my days as a teacher, on festive occasions, I was the one to apply the alpona at home.”
Growing up in Kolkata, the Mussoorie-born Ghosh might have never picked up the traditional art of alpona. Prodded by her mother, Pratibha Sengupta, a student of Nandalal Bose in Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, Ghosh, a teacher for over 40 years, has brought the art associated with Bengal to the streets of City of Joy.
A traditional art form restricted to women in Bengali households on either side of the border and also among Santhal women, the art of alpona, one might say, is losing out to the more colourful rangoli that has made its way into Bengal from the northern and western states.
One of the 10 houses around Lake Market - Raja Basanta Roy Road, Pratapaditya Road - that have been adorned with the ‘alpona’
“We are trying to mainstream alpona. It is almost a lost form now, restricted to a specific time of the year. We brought it to the streets,” says Mudar Patherya, a social activist and a quintessential Kolkatan. “We want to do this every year before Kali Pujo/Diwali and Christmas.”
Ghosh’s journey, as a public alpona artist, started with motifs and designs done on a Diwali morning some years ago in a city apartment. From 2022, the city’s streets have been her canvas, so to say, with alponas designed in front of 20 houses each in north and south Kolkata.
This year, with the Cyclone Dana impact on Kolkata, about 10 houses around Lake Market, Raja Basanta Roy Road, Pratapaditya Road have been adorned with the alpona.
The educationist-artist is expecting to cover some more areas on Wednesday, a day before Kali Puja.
Ghosh lends her ‘alpona’ touch to this grand dame of a house
“Once I was applying an alpona in front of a house. On the other side of the street was a grumpy old man in a shabby dress, watching me intently. He did not seem too happy seeing me applying the alpona,” said Ghosh. “After I finished this side, I took a look at his end. On being told politely if he could shift a little for me to cover that side too, he reluctantly stood up and came behind me, watching.”
“After I was finished, he told me he had clicked many pictures. I asked him why. He said he would send it to the local municipal councillor and inform him, ‘onyo paarar ekti meye ese amader para ta ki sundar kore diye gechhe (A girl from another locality came and turned our locality beautiful). His change of heart was amazing,” said Ghosh, a resident of Deshapriya Park.
This incident took place around the Lake Market area.
‘People have started using stickers, which is not a nice thing. That is not our tradition’ says Ghosh
“Another time, I was designing in front of a ramshackle house on Parashar Road. It must have been around 5.30 in the morning. The milkmen, and the domestic help had stopped to watch me. After I was done, they started telling each other how beautiful the house looked. They did not talk about the alpona, or me but the house. That is the transformation, the development of aesthetics that I am looking for,” she said. “People have started using stickers, which is not a nice thing. That is not our tradition.”
Last year before Christmas, Ghosh and eight others had applied the alpona at a city hotel with Christmas-based themes and motifs, covering the driveway, the portico, the lobby and two grand staircases.
“I have more confidence now and have started experimenting on wooden frames and earthenware,” Ghosh said.
