Thirty-four year old Rabi Biswas is a unique artist who has made it his life`s mission to document and uphold a folk art form that is traditionally a woman`s domain - the alpona. Belonging to a farming family, Rabi`s story is exceptional. 

Born in the village of Aurobindonagar in Nadia district, Rabi used to be interested in drawing from a very young age. To encourage him, his father hired an art teacher from a neighbouring village, who was also well versed in folk arts. By the time he was 12 or 13 years old, he was encouraged to learn alpona making from his maternal grandmother, Sumitra Mondal. However it was only two years later, that he decided  to study the art of alponas from nearby villages. His first attempt at alpona was the drawing of an owl, which he proudly brought back to his grandmother. It was then that she took him under her wing and started to teach him how to create alponas. Rabi was a meticulous student and took detailed notes on how to create a wide range of alponas, what rice to use and so on.  

Pretty soon, Rabi Biswas began to witness a strange phenomenon in his village. The women were spending less time with  rural rituals - brotos and alponas - and preferred to be watching soaps on cable TV instead or earning money by cutting betel nuts. Therefore come festival or ritual time, they prefer to hand over charge of alpona making to their brothers. Before long, he found that he was willy nilly being made the keeper  of the alpona art form by the women in the village. A few other young men in his village have also been inspired by him. This is possibly the only village in West Bengal where the art of alpona is being preserved by the men. Of course the brotos or rituals (or what is left of them) that accompany the alpona, continue to be the woman`s domain. 

In 2007, the West Bengal government was looking for an alpona artist for an exhibition in Delhi. But strangely, no rural woman could be identified. It was then that someone recommended Rabi. Excited at this opportunity, he asked his grandma to teach him more and thus began his journey. Registered as a folk artist, he was invited to display all his alponas at the exhibition. It was at this exhibition that a gentleman from Kolkata gifted him with a book on Brotos of Bengal , so impressed was he with the young artist. The book was an eye opener for young Rabi who was only in class XI at this time.

He started frequenting local libraries and eventually found his way to the Rabindra Bharati University library at Kolkata and discovered an early edition of Abanindranath Tagore`s book on alponas of East Bengal (not the Visva Bharati publication).  He found to his delight that he could identify similarities with what his grandmother had taught him and began to delve even further. He shared his discovery with  Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, a literary society of repute, who suggested that he should start documenting alponas for a book they would publish!

Though only just out of school,  Rabi had collected alponas for about 40 different brotos. Recognizing  his passion and his talent, he was given enormous support by academicians and government officials who paved the way for his membership of numerous libraries across the state, even though his lack of educational qualifications would not normally have permitted this. His book, Lakshmir Paa was eventually published by Charchapada  in January 2014. 

Rabi won a scholarship to study at Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati University, Shantiniketan. He has since graduated and is now doing his masters at the same institution, while continuing to research and practise his art. He sells his alponas at fairs 3 or 4 times a year and uses the money to fund his studies and that of his brother`s. More recently, he has begun to display his art at the Shonibarer Haat at Sonajhuri in Santiniketan every weekend

Rabi has come a long way since 2007. Beginning with participating in fairs and exhibitions of repute in Kolkata and other venues within India, he was invited to showcase his art alongside a performance by the renowned Parbati Das Baul and her group, first at the Melbourne Art Center, Australia, the following year at Budapest, Hungary and in 2019, Paris. His collaboration with Parboti Das Baul started as a result of a workshop we had organised for INTACH and which was reported in the media. Seeing the article in The Hindu, Parboti reached out to Rabi and there has been bo lookiing back since! His work has been bought by the Peerless Inn hotel group, and displayed at their restaurant, Aheli.  For the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad museum, he created alponas on cloth which were then stitched together to form a false ceiling. He has decorated entire homes and more recently, during the lockdown, he was invited to decorate the walls of one of the museums within the EZCC complex in Santiniketan, Srijani Shilpagram. 

Rabi bemoans the fact that in most villages, rice powder has given way to khari mati (white clay) which is sticky - then zinc oxide - now maida and some adhesive - and finally stickers. Robi uses either rice powder or khari mati and gum extracted from the bael fruit. Since there would be very few takers for ritualistic hand painted alponas on clay, Rabi has been giving permanence to his art by working on handmade paper or canvas processed with with layers of cow dung and clay to give the effect of rural soil. He has also been using his art to embellish bags, coasters and bookmarks. Last year however, he participated in an exhibition at ICCR, Kolkata, where he attempted to utilise non traditional material to reach out to a wider audience. 

Rabi`s popularity has spread but none of this has touched this simple boy from Krishnanagar. He remains forever indebted to his grandmother from whom he continues to learn and go deeper into the world of symbols and motifs of traditional Bangla alpona. He continues to travel to remote villages in his search for forgotten Bangla alpona motifs.