‘Saraikela Chhau’s soul lies in its masks’

“To show mild anger, the eyes need to be slightly raised…intense anger, the eyes are large, with raised eyebrows. For joy, the cheeks rise in a smile.”

It is attention to these details that make Dilip Patnayak a master craftsman of masks used in Jharkhand’s Saraikela Chhau dances. “The mask must reflect the character,” he says. “Saraikela masks are unique because they embody the navaras , the nine emotions, which no other Chhau style does.”

Masks in various stages of readiness lie all around his workstation, unique in their features: wide eyes, pencil-thin eyebrows, brightly coloured skin tones, all capturing diverse expressions.

The artform mixes dance and martial arts, and the dancers wear these masks as they enact stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and local folklore. Dilip makes all masks but his favourite is Krishna’s mask because, “[while] it is easy to depict anger with big eyes and raised eyebrows, showing mischief is not that easy.”

The fact that Dilip is also a performer helps. As a child he was part of a Chhau dance troupe and learnt mostly by watching performances at the local Shiva temple during the Chhau festival. His favourite part remains the dance of Krishna. Today he plays the dhol (drum) and is part of a Saraikela Chhau troupe.

Dilip lives with his wife, four daughters and a son in Tentoposi, a village of roughly over a thousand people in Jharkhand’s Saraikela district. Set amidst cultivated fields, their two-room brick home and compound doubles as a workstation. By the front door lies a pile of clay and opposite the house is a spreading neem tree where he sits to work in good weather.

“I watched my father [Keshav Acharya] make masks since I was a child,” says Dilip, a third-generation artist. “He could mould any character from clay.” He says the erstwhile royal family of Saraikela supported the art for and there were training centres in every village to teach mask-making; his father was a teacher.

“I have been making such masks for 40 years,” says 65-year-old Dilip, one of the last artisans upholding this age-old tradition. “People come from very far to learn. They come from America, Germany, France…,” he reels off far-off places.

On the state’s border with Odisha, Saraikela is a hub for music and dance enthusiasts. “Saraikela is the mother of all Chhau dances, and from here it spread to Mayurbhanj [Orissa] and Manbhum [Purulia],” says Guru Tapan Patnayak, 62, the former director of the Saraikela Chhau Center. He explains that the Saraikela Royal Chhau troupe was the first to present the dance outside India, performing across Europe in 1938, and since then, this style has travelled to many corners of the world.

But despite the global acclaim for Chhau, the number of artisans making these iconic masks has declined. “The local people do not want to learn,” says Dilip, the sadness in his voice is for the craft that now hangs by a thin clay thread.

Seated in his courtyard, Dilip arranges his tools carefully and then places smooth clay on a wooden frame. "We use our fingers to measure and divide the mask into three parts – one for the eyes, one for the nose, and one for the mouth," he explains.

Wetting his hands in water, he begins shaping the masks in the navaras (nine emotions) – shringara (love/beauty), hasya (laughter), karuna (sorrow), raudra (anger), veera (heroism/courage), bhayanaka (terror/fear), bibhatsa (disgust), adbutha (surprise/wonder) and shantha (peace or tranquility).

Among the different styles of Chhau, only Saraikela and Purulia Chhau use masks. “Saraikela Chhau’s soul is in its masks; without them, there would be no Chhau,” Dilip says, his hands working fast to shape the clay.

Once the clay mask is shaped, Dilip sprinkles rakh (cow-dung ash) over it so that the mould can easily be separated from the mask. He then pastes six layers of paper with layi (flour-based glue). The mask is then dried in the sun for two-three days and then carefully removed with a blade, and painted with precision. “Saraikela masks are very beautiful to look at,” says Dilip proudly. He supplies masks to around 50 villages in the area.

In the past, natural colours made from flowers, leaves and riverbed stones were used to paint the masks but now artificial colours are used.

“Once the artist wears the mask, they transform into the character,” says Tapan who has been performing Chhau for over 50 years. “If you are performing as Radha, you must consider Radha's age and appearance. According to the scriptures, she was very beautiful. So, we make Radha's mould with her distinctive lips and cheeks, making sure it looks like her.”

He goes to say, “once you wear the mask, you must convey emotions through your body and neck movements.” The dancer’s body is divided into two parts: ' anga ' (below the neck) and ' upang ' (the head). The ' upang ' includes the eyes, nose, ears and the mouth, all covered by the mask. The performer expresses emotions using both the upper and lower parts of the body.

So when a dancer wears the mask and wants to depict weeping, the facial emotions will not be visible because of the mask. To show PARI what he means, Tapan tilts his neck to the left, then brings both fists close to his face and tilts his head and upper body further to the left, as if someone is hurt and looking away in sadness.

Folklore goes that the original performers felt shy about dancing in front of people and donned these masks to cover their faces. “This is how the mask came into parikanda [martial art],” explains Tapan. The first masks were bamboo baskets with holes for the eyes. And while the tradition has evolved, Dilip says they would make masks with pumpkins when they were children.

Another origin story traces the Chhau to chawanni or military camps, thus accounting for its martial arts-like movements. But Tapan disagrees: “Chhau originated from chhaya [shadows],” he says, explaining that the performers are like shadows of the characters they play.

The dance is traditionally performed by men. And while, in recent years, some women have joined Chhau troupes, in the heart of Saraikela, performances are still male-dominated.

The same is true of making masks. Chhau me mahila nahi... yahi parampara chala aa raha hai, mask making ka sara kam ham khud karte hain [women are not involved in Chhau... this has been the tradition, and we do all the mask-making work ourselves],” says Dilip and adds, “my son helps me when he is here.”

His son Deepak learnt how to make masks from his father. But the 25-year-old has moved to Dhanbad where he works at an IT firm and earns more than mask making would get him.

When it comes to making statues however, the whole family may pitch in. Samyukta, Dilip’s wife says she does all the work when it comes to making idols. “ Sancha banate hai, mitti taiyar karte hai, painting bhi karte hai. lekin mukhauta me ladies kuch nahi karti hai [we make moulds, prepare the clay, and even do the painting. But when it comes to masks, the ladies don’t do anything].”

In 2023 Dilip made 500-700 masks which earned him around Rs. one lakh and he spent about Rs. 3,000 to 4,000 on paint, brushes and cloth through the year. He calls it his “part-time job,” and his main occupation now is making idols from which he earns Rs. three to four lakhs annually.

He makes masks on commission from various Chhau dance centres and also sells at the Chaitra Mela which takes place every April as part of the Chaita Parav or spring festival – an important event in the Saraikela Chhau calendar, attracting visitors from across the world. Bigger masks are priced between Rs. 250–300 while the miniatures sell for a hundred rupees each.

Dilip is clear that it’s not the money that still drives him. “It’s my tradition. I will continue the tradition as long as I live.”

This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).