Artisans busy in making jatra costumes. Telegraph picture

Jajpur, Dec. 1: Ranjan Kumar Nayak, 40, is a fifth-generation artisan from Narsinghpur in Jajpur district, a village famous for its mythological costumes.

The village under Rasulpur block houses dressmakers who designs dresses for on stage “gods and goddesses”. The village is popularly known as yatra posak gaon —opera costume village.

Nayak makes costumes for mythological characters of the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, Ramleela, Krishnaleela and others. The artisan admits that it is a tough task to be a dress designer for the “mortal gods and goddesses”.

“Less than 20 per cent of the costumes are stitched by machine. Therefore, since these are mostly handmade and based on intricate needle work, it takes a lot of time to complete the task,” said Nayak.

Opera groups, folk dance parties and other mythological troupes, which dramatise plays based on epics and puranas, use these clothes.

“The materials, used in the craft, are card board, paper, gum, cloth, velvet, mali (rosary), colourful stone and glittering jari. These products are prepared by placing layers of paper one upon the other up to a desired thickness over pasteboard. Then the pasteboard is left to dry. Thereafter, the artisans decorate it with colourful jari, mali and velvet,” said another artisan Gagan Behari Mohanty.

Most of the villagers, including women and children, are artisans, who proudly say that when it comes to mythological plays, it is their costumes that define the Almighty.

“We are no ordinary artists. We believe that we have something extra to be bestowed with the task of preparing clothes for gods and goddesses,” told a septuagenarian artisan Ranga Dei to The Telegraph.

More than 2,000 artisans of the village are engaged in dressmaking. Apart from Narasinghpur, hundreds of people from Haripur, Baransh, Mugupal, Govindapur and some other nearby places are involved in the business.

Artisans here put in two days each for every costume for Rs 2,500 a month. However, the monetary benefit has never come in the way of carrying on with the age-old tradition. “It is our tradition and no matter how little benefit we get out of it, we cannot leave it,” said Babuli Nayak, son of an artisan.

Organisers of Ramleela, Krishnaleela, Dhanu Yatra and mythological yatra within state and even outside such as, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat, Bengal, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and New Delhi get their costumes from here. However, the artisans said that of late the demand of opera costume had fallen.

“Earlier, most of the opera parties used to stage mythological dramas and we were in good demand. Now, very few mythological dramas are staged. Audiences have switched over to social drama due to modernisation prompting a reduction in demand for such dresses,” said artisan Sisir Kumar Sahu.