Allahabad :
The family of this 32-year-old Muslim from Dausa in Rajasthan is preserving the country’s ancient folk art form of ‘Bahurupiya’. They dress as Hindu mythological and other traditional characters. His family is engaged in it for five generations.
Meet Mohammad Farid, who and his brothers Naushad, Shamshad, Saleem and Akram are entertaining the crowd at ongoing Rashtriya Shilp Mela since past seven days by dressing up as Lord Krishna, Hanuman, Lord Shiva and 20 other mythological characters. These artistes are the centre of attraction for children and youngsters.
They also dress as women vegetable sellers, tribal man and woman and others. Farid has also been felicitated with ‘Kala Samman’ twice by Central government’s cultural centre, West Zone Cultural Centre in 2008 and 2012. He his brothers only appear in government sponsored fairs across the country.
“The was passed by my forefathers since past five generations. My father passed the art to five of us. I started giving stage performances at the age of 11 years while my first official appearance was at the age of 13,” Farid said.
Naushad said the most difficult part of a ‘bahurupiya’ being that there is no time limit on the stage or arena for performance.
Naushad, Shamshad, Saleem and Akram too started at an early age. It takes around two hours for the make up of mythological characters like Lord Shiva and Hanuman.
They rued that Rs 1,000 per day to the troupe leader and Rs 800 to the members is not sufficient.
“The makeup costs Rs 500. We have to purchase other items from Rajasthan as here the required items are not available,” 29-year-old Naushad, who performs the characters of Lord Hanuman, said. He also dresses a tribal man.
“I want my son to adopt the art but at the same time I want him to study and earn more than me by bagging a job. The renumeration that we get from the art is very low,” Farid said.
Due to the art, he got an opportunity to travel across the country from a nondescript village in Rajasthan.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Allahabad / by Vinod Khanal, TNN / December 09th, 2014