Chau: The ancient masked dance-drama

Photograph: Preeti Verma Lal

Where does the word Chau come from? Cho…cho… cho. If you ask an old-timer who has been on a hunting expedition, he would tell you that when the hunters chase their prey they usually shout cho cho cho… (a broader pronunciation of Chau), an instinctive call that scares the animals and motivates the hunters and fills them with spirited joy. If you watch, Chau, specially Purulia style of Chau, you would notice that the singer-drummer often rushes to the new characters egging him to rush to the stage by shouting cho.. cho.. cho. It infuses them with the same spirit as a hunter chasing its prey.

On an ordinary day, Nand Lal Nayak wears marl grey T-shirt and fashionable boot-cut jeans; he ties his long hair in a tight pony tail and speaks with a drawl. But on an extraordinary day, he wears the karia dhoti (coarse dhoti with designs in red), dons a mask and when the dhol (drum) reverberates and the mahuri (a shehnai like instrument) plays a plaintive tune, he leaps in the air, his arms flailing, his legs splayed. He is the ten-headed Ravana today; his face blue, his crown of beads and large gold sequins. He is worried about his fiefdom and he is mustering his strength against the army of monkeys. You can see his anger, you can fathom the exasperation as other masked characters join him on stage to tell the story from Ramayana one more time. Around the village square, people gather in awe as the story unfolds and the crescendo grows. That's a Chau performance in a village square.

Nayak is a musician-dancer who grew up in Ranchi, learnt the niceties of Chau from his father Mukund Nayak, a veteran in the field, and has performed Chau all over the world. He lives in Boston, thinks music is his forte, but when he breaks into an impromptu performance of Chau you know what this masked dance-drama is all about. It borrows from the tenets of Indian natya shastra, its gestures taking cue heavily from the flight and gait of birds and animals. Since Chau is a masked dance, there are no facial expressions, every emotion is conveyed through the hands and feet. At times props like swords, shields and bows are used to enhance the story telling, but they are not essential. The dance is performed in open air on a raised platform with the musicians occupying one end of the platform. The themes are often stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, though of late it is also being used as a medium to convey social messages like safe sex, fewer children, education of the girl child etc.

Where does the word Chau come from? Cho…cho… cho. If you ask an old-timer who has been on a hunting expedition, he would tell you that when the hunters chase their prey they usually shout cho cho cho… (a broader pronunciation of Chau), an instinctive call that scares the animals and motivates the hunters and fills them with spirited joy. If you watch, Chau, specially Purulia style of Chau, you would notice that the singer-drummer often rushes to the new characters egging him to rush to the stage by shouting cho.. cho.. cho. It infuses them with the same spirit as a hunter chasing its prey. Many believe that the name of this martial dance-drama owes its name to this call. Others say it takes from the Sanskrit root word chaya. Still others think it originated in the mock fights of Oriya paikas (warriors) who fought to the accompaniment of indigenous musical instruments. The debate about the origin of the word Chau continues, some insisting on a classical genesis, others according it a martial touch.

In the beginning, Chau was a simple dance form that was performed by tribals after the gods were propitiated and the rituals performed in the neighbouring temple and the village square. The characters were usually birds and animals, or at the most a ghost (chirkuni). It was an exclusive domain of the tribals living in Chotangapur, West Bengal and Orissa. Since these tribals lived in inaccessible jungles, Chau continued to escape the influence of other art forms. However, three different styles of Chau emerged from the regions where they were practiced - Purulia (West Bengal), Seraikela (Chotanagpur) and Mayurbhanj (Orissa). If one looks at the basic differences, the Chau dancers of Purulia wear highly stylized masks, in Seraikela the masks are smaller, while in Mayurbhanj, the dancers do not wear masks. The dhol and the mahuri, however, remained the two main musical instruments.

When the kings and princes started patronizing this dance form, a lot changed. Musical instruments like the sitar and sarangi were introduced and it is often said that when King Aditya Pratap Deo of Seraikela studied the frescoes of Ajanta, he brought elegance to the masks. He is said to have directed master craftsman Prassana Kumar Mahapatra to add elongated and arched lines for the eyebrows and eyes that compensate beautifully for the lack of facial expressions. Later, Prince Vijay Pratap Singh Deo added stylized and vigorous body movements. This led to the classification of Chau into three categories - primary dance; solo or duet dances depicting birds, animals, night, sea and lives of the ordinary people like boatmen, fishermen and hunters. Dramatic dances make for the last category that is mainly inspired by epics like Meghdoot by Kalidas and Bandir Swapna by Rabindranath Tagore.

One of the most famous themes from the Seraikela repertoire is a short but poetic Banibaddha, which narrates the anguish of a deer whose heart has been pierced with a hunter's arrow. She limps in pain and drags herself through the forest to reach the hunter who has given her the pain. It is a poignant tale that has been told and retold several times in several village squares.

In Purulia style of Chau, a special flask-shaped arena is prepared during festival time and unlike Seraikela Chau, the drummer sings the introductory passage. The heroic characters do not commence the dance immediately, they run back and forth in the narrow passage first, while the demons indulge in somersaults and vigorous whirls. Interestingly, even the 'good' characters resort to very forceful gestures. The demons always have knitted eyebrows and the masks are heavier and more jazzy as compared with the Seraikela style.

Since there are no masks in the Mayurbhanj school, some women have broken the glass ceiling and taken to Chau, which for centuries has remained a male bastion.

When spring comes and then turns into summer, a huge chunk of Jharkhand becomes a stage and Chau the biggest crowdpuller. The harvest has been reaped, it is the beginning of a new year and the tribals know no other definition of celebration. For them it is only Chau.

The Making of a Mask
Prajapati Sutradhar did not like my intrusion. He was shaving wood for his hearth when my shadow fell on him. He looked at my camera and knew the reason. "I have talked to reporters so many times, I don't want to do this again.." he shook his head in exasperation. Another old man in impeccable dhoti and kurta muttered something in Bengali. I knew he was being kind to me, but Sutradhar kept shaving wood and added, "I am completely stoic about all this now…".

Tough nut, I knew. I smiled, I pleaded, I threw in some good reasons, but he would not relent. I could not go back without a picture, without the facts and I don't give up this easily. How about this? "I know you are busy, what if I pay you to talk and look at the masks." It worked!

Sutradhar is 71 and has been making Chau masks for 40 years. He made the first one of Lord Ganesha when he was still young and in Purulia; since then he has made thousands of masks - animals, gods, demons. He knows no other art; his is a 'masked' world, so he says.

The basic ingredients to make a mask are - river soil, lots of newspaper, thin piece of cloth, very little lime and paint. The fine soil from the river banks is picked and turned into moulds. The first layer of newspaper is pasted on the dry mould, then another, then another. In all, nearly 20 layers of newspapers are glued on to each other with the help of gum made out of wheat flour (take a handful of atta in a bowl, add a little water and cook it for a few minutes till it reaches a thick consistency). Once the newspaper layers are ready, they are daubed with a layer of the same soil with which the mould was initially made. A thin piece of cloth, usually pieces of old, worn saree or dhoti, is dipped in liquid soil and then stuck to the layered mould which is left out in the sun for two days to dry completely. The clay mould is then gently scraped from the back of the mask making it hollow.

The mask is still brown and stark, it needs expressions and colours. A lime (khalli mitti) primer is used before the reds, the blues, the blacks, the yellows and the greens are used to make the face. Even after the masks have donned the 'grease paint' they need to be decorated with peacock feathers, plastic flowers, silver/gold etc. which are often procured from Kolkatta. But not all masks are adorned this way, the animal masks are often only painted, rarely are they decorated like the gods.

Sutradhar says he can make two masks a day which sell between Rs 100 and Rs 1,200. When the masks are not in use, they are wrapped in newspaper, tied with rope and hung on walls. When summer comes, they are dusted, donned and mythology comes alive on stage once again.

After providing me with all this information, Sutradhar went back to shaving wood, but not before I had kept my promise to him.

Published in Discover India magazine, November 2005