Imagine a whole small village of families who make their modest living painting and singing. It sounds idyllic, but I am sure it is harder than it seems. For one thing, you can’t just paint and sing all day – you need to cook, take care of children, and tend gardens, fields and animals. Plus, what if you just don’t feel inspired to paint that day – you have to anyhow, its your livelihood.

Naya village, an area in the larger Pingla district north of Kolkata, is such a place. Walk down a narrow dirt lane off the main street and you encounter neat rows of small houses with front porches devoted to sales areas, piled with scrolls and other products painted with motifs. The sides of the homes are decorated with scroll images: mostly flora and fauna.

At the end of the lane is a large modern two-story building which serves as a museum, community center and guest house. Our group is ushered into an open upstairs room, and what seems like the whole village follows. Party time!

What followed was a sort of “getting to know you” workshop. The scroll painters (included some we had already met while they were in Kolkata personning a sales booth at the Sur Jahan Festival we had attended the weekend before) showed us their work and sang us some scroll songs. Then, they brought out a variety of natural materials which they use to make paints – flowers, leaves, berries, and fresh tumeric – and we all laughed as they showed us how to squeeze and squish these to produce vibrant colors.

At some point in this process, one young man, Bapi Chitrakar, came up to me as I was taking photos with my phone camera. Could he borrow my phone to take some photos? (We didn’t need a common language for this transaction, gestures worked just fine.) I was slightly reductant, but we were all becoming friends here, so why not? After all, it would allow me to more fully devote myself to mashing colors into my “field notebook.”

Bapi got into the animation function (as well as the collage and burst functions), so many of the photos dance and wiggle, and capture the childlike fun we were having playing with the natural dyes and getting to know the painters. I dare say they were having fun, too, laughing with, and at, us.  I’ve included some of those here.

The day ended with us presenting an idea for a scroll which they will be producing in the coming months, the story of the history and current use of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. None of them have ever seen the National Mall; we provided photos and the storyline, but we have no idea how the final scroll painting (and possibly an accompanying song) will turn out. It will be one of the many surprises and delights of this whole cultural exchange experience.