With weekdays immersed in creating wooden art forms, sometimes for ten hours at a stretch, Sundays for Pandi Ram Mandavi is a time for rest. But this one, which coincides with Republic Day, is different. It has been spent answering a steady stream of congratulatory calls from across the country and beyond, on his humble feature phone.
Mr. Mandavi has been chosen for Padma Shri, India’s prestigious fourth-highest civilian award, for his contribution to the field of wood craftsmanship and is particularly known for popularising a specially designed flute. The 68-year-old, whose love affair with the art began at the tender age of 15, has spent over half a century chiselling wood into shape. He is also the only one from Chhattisgarh to win a Padma award this year.
Padma awards 2025: See the full list of winners here
The veteran artist, whose sculptures and musical instruments have travelled India and beyond for nearly four decades, feels the latest recognition will inspire others to take up the art. He adds that it will also create opportunities for existing artists in his village of Gadhbengal in Narayanpur district, and the larger Bastar region. He also wishes for a concrete policy for artisans at the State and Central level.
“There are various forms of painting and terracotta art also in Gadhbengal and many more across Bastar. But most of us lack marketing skills and still struggle to find markets. I hope the recognition I have achieved helps others too,” says Mr. Mandavi, who was born into a Gondi-speaking family from the Muriya tribe and learnt the woodwork from his father.
Padma Shri winner, master instrument maker and wood carver Pandi Ram Mandavi. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
For his journey — which has seen him winning several State-level awards and exhibiting his work in places like Delhi’s Pragati Maidan and Mumbai’s Jehangir Art Gallery and also abroad — he credits the late poet-artist J. Swaminathan who created the Tribal Arts Museum at Bharat Bhawan, in Bhopal, the then capital of undivided Madhya Pradesh.
“Mr. Swaminathan travelled across Bastar to discover artists and artisans and took my sculptures to Bhopal. In the 1990s, I featured in Surabhi — a popular cultural magazine show aired on Doordarshan — which bolstered my prospects in a big way,” says Mr. Mandavi, dressed in a folded lungi and a white shirt.
For wooden art that ranges from tiny combs to gigantic statues of Muria tribal men and women and even doors and pillars with engravings, it is the flute that earned Mr. Mandavi much recognition and remains one of his ‘bestsellers’. “In the early 1990s, when it was being exhibited in Delhi, it caught the fancy of a group of visiting Japanese schoolchildren, each wanting to buy more than a piece. I realised its potential and over the years, I have lost count of the number of pieces I have sold,” he says.
His flute differs from the traditional flute that creates music by blowing air into a perforated cylinder. Sound is produced by holding the flute in the hand like a wand and spinning it, a process that uses the air entering the long cylinder through a combination of three metallic washers stacked together at one end. In his childhood, specific designs of copper coins with holes in them were used.
This was a utility product in the ages gone by when people used the sound to keep away small reptiles while walking through the jungle terrain. Watching an elderly man in his neighbourhood use it inspired a young Mr. Mandavi to develop it into a musical instrument. His son Baldev shows videos where people have experimented using the flute while performing dance or martial arts, each movement creating a different sound pattern.
“Now it is being made by others in Bastar too but I was among the first who started it,” he says.
With a team of around 15-20 individuals, including his sons Baldev and Ram Singh, Mr. Mandavi is now designing the local Ghotul. Ghotuls are indigenous dormitories for young unmarried people in tribal communities in India but with participation declining, his is also an attempt to revive the culture.
And he is not done yet. The Padma Shri award has fuelled fresh hope of setting up a permanent museum of his work because “it’s not easy to draw youngsters to the traditional artforms and we need to preserve what we have”.
Published - January 26, 2025 08:30 pm IST
