Jhaad Phoonk Bali

The scene is busy with life and purpose. Across an open white ground, a gathering of figures moves through the stages of a ritual that has been performed in Baiga communities for generations. At the centre, a tall, broad-shouldered woman dominates the composition in purple, orange and yellow, her stance wide and authoritative, a bag held at her side. Around her, the world is in motion: a man in blue reaches toward a bird mid-flight, another figure lifts and gestures, children stand at the edges watching, a brown dog moves through the lower middle of the scene with the easy confidence of an animal who belongs. A rooster struts near the ground. Two small framed figures appear at the lower right, contained within borders of their own, as though they exist in a different register of the same story, perhaps seen, perhaps dreamt, perhaps remembered.

Jhaad phoonk bali refers to the ritual practices of healing, spirit appeasement and sacrifice that form a central part of Baiga spiritual life. Jodhaiya Bai paints this ceremony not as spectacle but as lived experience, the ordinary and the sacred folded into one another without hierarchy or explanation. Each figure is rendered in the bold, flat colour and confident outline that characterises her hand: green skin, blue skin, the wide eyes of people entirely absorbed in what they are doing. Painted in acrylic on canvas, the work carries the visual logic of a community whose relationship with the unseen world is practical, immediate and matter-of-fact. Jodhaiya Bai, a Padma Shri recipient and one of the foremost Baiga artists of her generation, documents this world from the inside, with the authority of someone for whom these ceremonies are not subject matter but lived memory.

Why This Artwork Stands Out

The composition's open, frieze-like arrangement across the white ground gives the ritual scene a timeless, almost mural-like quality, each figure and creature occupying its own clear space within the collective action. The inclusion of animals, birds and children alongside the central healing figure reflects the Baiga worldview in which ceremony is not separate from daily life but continuous with it. The two framed figures at the lower right introduce a second visual layer within the composition, suggesting the presence of vision, spirit or memory operating alongside the physical scene. Jodhaiya Bai's status as a Padma Shri laureate and keeper of Baiga visual tradition gives this painting the weight of cultural testimony as much as artistic achievement.