Mayna Chitrakar
Paintings: Manasa Mangal, Bin Laden – 11 September
Artist: Mayna Chitrakar
My name is Mayna, and I was born in Naya. My mother’s name is Jamuna, but I have never met my father. My mother brought up the three of us with great hardship. She used to sell bangles, ribbons, lac dye, and vermilion in other villages around Naya. She also used to sell clay dolls and showed scrolls to villagers to earn money to support our family. We grew up quickly, nurtured by her from her modest income. She really struggled through the years when we were children. When I was old enough, I asked to go to school. My mother told me that since our father had abandoned her that she could not afford to send us to school. But she proposed an alternative: she would buy us some goats and we could begin to produce a higher family income. The education of her children seemed to be the last thing on her mind, although at the time I understood her frustration with being the sole breadwinner of our family. She really needed out help.
Caring for the goats didn’t satiate my desire to learn, so used to graze them and learn scroll songs from the neighborhood oldies. I picked up some songs, and then learned to paint from my mother. I started painting when I was seven and sang a little, too. When I grew a little older I asked my mother to admit me to the village school. She resisted, but I threw a fit and she finally enrolled me. I studied a lot, but when I was twelve years old, my mother arranged my marriage in Nandigram. I left Naya for my marital home but soon realized what a nightmare of a life I had adopted. My husband’s family had no land, and I am experienced even greater poverty than I had living with my mother and brothers and sisters. I suffered for a while and stooped to begging on the streets. When it became financially feasible, I began to show scrolls and to sing to earn some money and rice. Somehow, I managed.
But I asked my husband time and again, “How long can we really go on like this? There are two of us now, but surely our family will grow, and what will we do then?” I told him that if we stayed in his village, we would surely starve to death, and I asked him to consider the option of returning to my mother’s home in Naya. We would continue to learn scroll painting and singing! I could do it already, and I would teach him, and we would start to paint at home and go wherever we were invited. I told him that we could earn good money and manage quite well if we rearranged our living situation and finances in this way. I came to realize that my husband can sing and paint pretty well. I do too—I’ve traveled to Australia to show my scrolls and sing, and I’ve received prizes for my work. We had a training center in Baroa where I used to teach the trainees. I have also helped to spread awareness about the dangers of polio and malaria by painting and displaying scrolls in villages. There is a training center in Naya now, and I will teach scroll work there. As far as the Hindu-Muslim relationship goes, the scroll business has produced a sense of peace. The local Muslims tell us that since this is our profession and we earn from it, we should do it well so that we can support ourselves. They say “When you are becoming famous for this art, why should you have to give it up?” Both Hindus and Muslims work together—we are not hated or considered inferior by anyone.
Beyond the scroll painting and singing, though, problems developed between me and my husband. When we moved back to Naya, we lived in a tiny mud hut that we built by the dam. Back in my husband’s village, we had had a baby boy, but he passed away shortly after being born. He was so poorly nourished, and for me, not being able to provide for him and seeing the catastrophic results of my lack of ability to care brought on a serious depression. Four years later after having moved to Naya, we had two sons. After they were born, I explained to my husband that we shouldn’t have any more children. How could we ensure that we would be able to bring them up with all the things that they needed? My elder sister had a lot of kids, but she couldn’t provide for all of them. They didn’t have clothes, and she couldn’t afford to send them to school either. She didn’t even have the money to buy medicine when they were sick! I didn’t want any more children because I could see the problems that arose from having too many kids. I wanted to go to the hospital for birth control. My husband wouldn’t let me go for religious reasons, but I insisted, and he finally consented. I later found out that he had not properly registered my name intentionally, so I took matters into my own hands. I took a form and signed everywhere I had to sign, then gave it to the hospital authorities. I signed the bond to the effect that I was doing the operation voluntarily. When I came home after the operation, my husband didn’t say anything to me.
I went to my mother after my operation. She kept me with her for quite some time and didn’t allow me to do anything. Then she told me, “Look, you have no plot of your own. I’ll give you a small plot of land; you can save and build a house there.” A few months later I built a mud house.There, my story ends.