MATA NI PACHEDI (Meladi Mata)

Mata-ni-Pachedi is a textile painting that is hand-block-printed and hand-painted by the Vaghri community. It’s a folk art form that is popularly called the Kalamkari tradition of Gujarat. The Vaghris are Devi-pujaks or devotees of the divine feminine, and they create intricate paintings on textiles that serve as easily portable shrines to a dazzling variety of goddesses. ‘Mata ni Pachedi,’ literally translated as ‘backdrop of the mother goddess,’ has a more varied, etymological background than might be suspected.

The legend of Meldi Mata is as moving as the plight of the people who worship her, ie Dalits and other disenfranchised communities. She is the goddess of the ‘impure’ realm, named after the Gujarati word for dirt ‘melu’. She inhabits the shadowy margins where mainstream gods fear to tread, like cemeteries. There are a couple of legends explaining her origin. One has it that Parvati created Meldi from the dirt of her body and bestowed upon this daughter divine shakti or strength as well as the black male goat as mount. Another story places Meldi as the daughter of Ravana, who defied her family to marry a man from an ‘untouchable’ caste; she ends up immolating herself on his pyre, thereby finding her niche at crematory grounds.

Sanjay Manubhai Chitara, based in Ahmedabad, has been an artist preserving the tradition of Mata-ni-Pachedi paintings for more than two decades. He began painting as an assistant to his father and National Award-winning artist Manubhai, at the age of 12. Sanjay received the same recognition in 2000 when President Abdul Kalam presented him with the National Award.

Size              : 48 x 48 inches

Medium        : Natural pigments on cotton fabric

Artist            : Sanjay Chitara

Year              : 2024

Signature     : Signed 'Sanjay. M. Chitara' lower right