Bihar’s most vital folk festival Chhath Puja is representing here through the innovative bamboo craft (Venu Shilp) of State Award-winning artisan Manoj Kumar Mallik.
Chhath is a nature-centric festival dedicated to the rising and setting sun. It is celebrated for progeny, health, and communal harmony, emphasizing environmental consciousness through its use of natural offerings. Rooted in Vedic and mythological texts, the festival occurs twice annually (Chaitra and Kartik), with the Kartik celebration being the most prominent globally. Mallik uses bamboo to create a three-tiered narrative structures. The Ground Floor depicts the crafting process, featuring sculptures of artisans making traditional bamboo soops, dauras (baskets), and containers; the First Floor displays the ritual materials essential to the festival, including sugarcane stalks, coconuts, traditional clay stoves (chulhas), and bamboo dalias and the Top Floor portrays the spiritual climax, showing female devotees offering arghya (oblations) to the Sun God using bamboo soops filled with traditional prasad like thekua, bananas, and radish. The work serves as a powerful narrative of devotion and craftsmanship, demonstrating how traditional bamboo art remains inextricably linked to Bihar’s cultural identity and religious rituals.
