Come festive days and the womenfolk in Orissa get busy decorating their houses to welcome gods and goddess by designing alpana or jhoti or chita on the floor of the house. It is an age-old belief that the chita invokes blessing of various gods. The chita is believed to have an aesthetic form that symbolises the aspects of cosmic order. The evolution of an intricately designed chita over the years is undeniably an invaluable gift to the folk art and culture of Orissa.
The culturally rich Orissa observes thirteen festivals in twelve months. The chita is a very common feature of these festivities, especially in the rural areas. As the sophisticated metropolitan pays a handsome amount in buying precious paintings for the interior decorations, the women in rural Orissa draw the chita for decoration purpose. Their unrelenting efforts over the years have brought the genre of finesse to this folk art. The sketch-model of certain kinds of chita have become the paradigm for a novice in the field.
The most common and simple raw material used for making the chita are rice grain powder or chalk powder. Sometimes, it is mixed with water to form a water-dye. The fluid material is called as Pithau. The artist well-manipulates pithau to make the desired designs and motifs on the floor. The fingers are used for the purpose. Brushes and sieves of different models are now widely used, thereby, saving much of the time without compromising the quality of the output. The powder or the pithau are sifted through the sieves to sketch out the delicate designs of the chita. Many innovative methods, using different brushes and raw materials, have been evolved . Another way practised by skilled women is the use of coconut leaf and gums of mangoes. A reed of the coconut leaf is split at the middle and then a small and thin stick is inserted through the split. After mixing the Chalk powder with gum obtained from mangoes, the stick is dipped in it and the Chita is drawn.
The art is the spontaneous expression of the artist. Though there are certain fixed models of motifs and designs of chita to invoke blessings of various gods and goddesses, the innovative mind of the artist knows no bounds. There are more than 70 models of chita meant for different purposes. Most of the chita are lotus shaped. The drawings of the conch, the hammer, the discuss, the alata chamar, the chatra, the feet of the goddess Laxmi are the commonly used designs. Footmarks are painted from the door steps to the place of worship as if goddess Mahalaxmi has entered the house.
The lotus chita is painted on the walls of the room where the goddess is worshipped on all thursdays of Margasira. Most of the chita meant for goddess Laxmi are painted on south facing walls of the house at the beginning of Chaturmasi (four months of the rainy season). Colours are, sometimes, added to the chita. For example, the Khamba Mandala chita is painted with five colours to invoke the blessings of Mahalaxmi in the month of Aswin.
The Dasa Padma Mandal Chita is an assemblage of lotuses and is painted on the floor of the room with five colours during the Chandan Jatra or Snana Purnami - a festival held in the month of May. Besides these lotus shaped chitas, several types of chitas are drawn on the floor and the walls. The Jhaiki Jumpa chita is painted on the walls of the room where god Prajapati is worshipped during the marriages and sacred ceremonies. The Erundi Chita is also one of the delicately designed chita invariably painted by the brahmins at the door sills. The Bela Patri Mandal Chita shows the concurrence of the leaves of the Woodapple tree and is drawn on Shivratri, a festival on the night of the fourteenth day of Phalguna.
Rural women have been showing their artistic skills since time immemorial through this folk art. The chita has been regarded as an exclusively women’s art. All festivities and cultural programmes in Orissa witness the sporting up of women - the old and the young, engaged in drawings and designing the kinds of chita meant for the occasion.
Oriya women, driven by the urge of a deep and passionate involvement with this aesthetic form, are not only engaged in the ‘interior decoration’ of their houses, but also symbolically participate in the esoteric acts of realizing the infinite dimensions of the cosmic order. To keep this traditional art live, the hope lies in those modern- day- paintings that have come up from the very traditional art of the chita, blended with skills and innovations of the artists.
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