Natungram, village of wooden dolls
kolkata: At a stone’s throw from Agradwip rail station on the Howrah-Katwa line in East Burdwan, is Natungram, the village of the wooden dolls. Quaintly nestled amidst mango orchards, thick bamboo groves and lush green farmlands, this simple village has found its place on the world map for its incredible art.
The piles of neatly cut wood sitting by the side of the village path are an indication of the rich tradition of wood carving. Dolls are mainly made out of wood of shimul, mango, ata and chatim trees. One can find a plethora of wooden figurines – from Gour Nitai to Radha Krishna, from Goddess Durga and Kali to king and queen. The wave of Bhakti movement in Bengal in the 15th and 16th centuries introduced the Gour-Nitai dolls – a pair of male figures with hands outstretched over their heads. They represent Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his close disciple Nityananda. Not only figurines but the artisans make full-fledged furniture and home décor items like dining tables, chairs, coffee tables, four-legged stools, lamp shades, etc. Myriad intricate motifs and designs are painted to adorn the wooden figurines and furniture. “We use normal fabric paints and oil paints. They are bright and durable on wood,” says an aged artisan as he sits on his verandah, engrossed in painting a large sized wooden owl.
As you take a tour of the village, you are flanked by single-storeyed mud and brick huts, some of them with an open front courtyard, stacked with wooden handicrafts, and you can patiently watch the making of the carved wooden figurines and the ubiquitous timber owl. The most beautiful thing is, the whole family engages in the art – usually the men are skilled in wood carving and the women do the colouring and polishing. To begin with, the dolls are chiselled from a piece of seasoned wood which is cut to the required length. Then the faces and attires are painted on them.
The village consists of fifty families of wood carvers, whose ancestors were sculptors who had settled in this region about two and a half centuries ago; the artisan storytellers, popularly known as Bhaskar (meaning sculptor)and Sutradhar(meaning storyteller), have inherited these surnames based on their profession.
“We have been making these wooden handicrafts all our lives, and these blocks of wood, these colours, this is our life,” Brindaban and Sutradhar and his wife Chandana Sutradhar say as they sit in one corner of their front courtyard, with Over the last few years, Natungram has been the venue of the Annual Wooden Dolls Fair, organised by Swami Janakidas Natungram Kasthakhodai Hastasilpa Samity. The Government of West Bengal in association with UNESCO, has taken the initiative to develop a Rural Craft Hub at Natungram.
