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A deck to treasure
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Ganjifa cards, which flourished wherever the Mughals ruled in India, were hand-painted ornately with figurative work or embellished with intricate miniatures for the courtiers. Today's versions struggle for existence as an art form in various pockets of the country, writes ADITI DE, after visiting the recent Ganjifa exhibition in the City.
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AS YOU walk towards Puri's famed Jagannath temple, you might catch sight of elderly men huddled over round, handmade Ganjifa cards. The cards they hold could be either the 120-card dasavatara Ganjifa of 10 to 12 suits or the deck in its Ramayana avatar.
Shuffling a pack of traditional Indian playing cards through time, we find that it was in June 1587 that the first Mughal ruler Babar sent Ganjifa cards to his friend in Sind. That marked the entry of Ganjifa into the Indian subcontinent, probably through the Persian mainland, though playing cards are said to be of Chinese origin. These cards were probably an eight-suited pack of 96-card Mughal Ganjifa, described by Akbar's vazir and biographer Abul Fazal in the Ain-i-Akbari.
Ganjifa cards, which flourished wherever the Mughals ruled in India, were hand painted ornately with figurative work or embellished with intricate miniatures for the courtiers, each a work of art. The more expensive cards, made of ivory, tortoise shell, mother of pearl, or enamelled precious metals, were strictly for the rulers, while bazaar quality cards for everyman were made of papier-mâché, palm leaf, waste paper or cloth. Samples of the royal decks survive in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Deutsches Spielkarten Museum at Leinfelden, Germany, and the Museums fur Volkerkunde at Vienna. The more popular cards today struggle for existence as an art form at Sawantwadi in Maharashtra, pockets of Orissa, Nirmal in Andhra Pradesh, Mysore, and Bishnupur in West Bengal.
Their plight was in evidence at the ongoing Ganjifa exhibition and workshop with 27 students at Kannada Bhavan's Chitra Art Gallery from May 19 to 22, organised by the southern regional centre of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). At the very core of the event, which followed the trail of the Craft Council of Karnataka's (CCK) similar workshops in 1995 and 1997, was Mumbai-based collector Kishor N. Gordhandas, who prizes 75-plus Ganjifa sets among his personal treasures.
Why are they treasured? Because the exquisite Sawantwadi cards were once part of the trousseau of Maharashtrian Brahmin brides. Because craftsmen from Nirmal often executed Mughal Ganjifas for the Muslim gentry and dashavatara sets for the Hindu nobles. Because the Malla kings of Bengal, addicted to Jayadeva's lyricism, found the Ganjifa cards by the Foujdar clan of Bishnupur equally tantalizing.
But what of today? "I began my collection in 1981," recalls Gordhandas. "I once tried to order a set of Ganjifa from Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan, where the craft had flourished. But there were no skilled craftsmen left there! Beautiful papier-mâché sets were made in Kashmir. A single artist came to a demonstration in Mumbai in the early 1990s and made seven sample cards. That's all... " He adds insights into the game, "The number of cards, and not their value, count towards victory."
As his voice trails away, current realities come to the fore. Though the Bishnupur artists are missing at the workshop, their brothers in craft from the other four centres are present. How do they view their lives? "I've never seen anyone in my family playing these card games. I don't know how, either. The ten-odd families in Sawantwadi who makes these sets in painted wooden boxes don't survive off them. To fill our bellies, we make little baskets filled with 27 wooden fruit, which sell for Rs. 500 each," confesses Subhash Chitari, whose ancestors have made dashavatara or navagraha Ganjifa cards for at least five generations. "And the foreigners who buy our sets often use them under their glasses, as coasters!"
N. Satyanarayan, who learnt the craft from B. Narasingam of Nirmal Toys and Arts, stresses, "Kishor bhai from Mumbai often buys our sets. He taught us how to play Ganjifa, but no one else at Nirmal does." Does his family earn a living from the painted cards? "My two older sons work at this, like I do. It takes us about a month and eight days to make two dashavatara sets of 120 cards, which sell at Rs. 2,200 and two 96-card Chenga Rani sets at Rs. 2000 each. We're content with our lot."
A few feet away stands Gurupada H. of the International Ganjifa Research Centre at Mysore, set up by his uncle, Raghupathi Bhatt. "I learnt the craft from him over the past ten years," says Gurupada of the Mysore school, considered among the finest in India by Gordhandas, especially under royal patronage. "He has taught at least 500 others. We sell our natural-dye painted cards, mainly eight-card ashtavatara or ten-card dashavatara sequences, at exhibitions or through emporia. Nobody buys a whole set any more. Unlike the Orissa sets, ours are made of handmade paper, not cloth." Orissa's Ganjifa skills find their voice through National Award winner Banamali Mahopatra from the Pattachitra Crafts Village at Raghurajpur, and his son, Bijaya Kumar. Painted with a fine mouse-hair brush on cloth-pasted roundels held by tamarind glue, the art keeps their home fires burning. While Banamali recites the names of the eight avatars his family has elaborated with dedication over ten generations, his son says: "It takes us about 15 to 20 days to make a set of cards, without the box, which we sell at only Rs. 800 to the home market. We don't dabble in anything else. My mother makes masks. In a month, the three of us earn at least Rs. 5,000 to 6,000."
Are workshops like this worthwhile? "We've done similar exercises in Delhi and Mumbai," says Bijaya Kumar. "But how much can you learn in four days? I feel it takes at least a year or two to become a real craftsperson or karigar."
Perhaps the last word rests with Vimala Rangachar of the CCK, who observed as she inaugurated the event, "I feel these workshops should address more young people directly. If they learn to play these games like the Ramayana Ganjifa, not only will the epics live on, but so will the art as a living form." Is anybody listening?
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