Phulia creates 3km-long alpana in 10 hours

– Hundreds wield brush and paint to draw on road with four colours

Anit Thapa addresses the meeting in Kurseong on Sunday. Picture by Passang Yolmo

Phulia:

Over 800 people wielded brushes and paints of four hues and drew for around 10 hours to create a 3km-long alpana, which the organisers claim is the longest in the world.

The residents of Nadia’s Phulia woke up on Sunday morning to a splendid view of the alpana, which is a traditional motif drawn on the floor in Bengal and elsewhere in the country.

From 9pm on Saturday, 25 groups with 35 members each started drawing the alpana from Phulia bus stand and completed the entire 3km stretch of a road at Sabujpally around 7am on Sunday. To draw the alpana, 2,800 litres of acrylic paints of four different hues were used.

The artists were responding to a request by Junior 100 Foundation, a social organisation.

“Phulia’s 3km alpana is the longest in the world so far and we are planning to approach the Guinness Book of World Record for its inclusion on the list of extraordinary achievements,” said Abhinaba Basak, the cultural secretary of Junior 100 Foundation.

Debabrata Pal, 28, a graduate in fine arts from a government art college, who took part in the alpana drawing, said: “With such an initiative, people will experience the pleasant look of traditional motifs synonymous with our culture”.

In September, Before Durga Puja, Samaj Sebi Sangha Sarbojanin Durgotsav Committee in south Calcutta drew a 1.2km alpana. Over 320 government art college students took less than 24 hours to draw it.

Basak said: “Our aim is not to go for any competition rather to revive a passion to learn Bengal’s traditional art among the young generation. With this objective, we tried to make it as long as possible, which eventually became the longest one.”

Enthusiasts like Mousumi Biswas, 22, an MA second-year student and Arijit Debnath, 11, of Class V also took up the brush to draw the alpana. The initiative received cooperation from police who diverted traffic to facilitate the drawing.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Home> West Bengal / by Subhasish Chaudhuri / October 29th, 2017

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