Modi's gifts to Quad leaders: Gond painting, Sanjhi panel, box with Rogan painting

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday gifted a Gond art painting, a specimen of Sanjhi art form and a wooden hand-carved box to his fellow Quad leaders from Australia, the US and Japan, sources said.

Modi's gift to US President Joe Biden was an intricate Sanjhi panel based on the theme of Thakurani Ghat from Mathura by a national awardee, they said.

Sanjhi, the art of hand-cutting designs on paper, is a typical art form of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, the home of Lord Krishna.

Traditionally motifs from Lord Krishna's stories are created in stencils. These stencils are cut freehand using a scissor or a blade and the delicate Sanjhi is often held together by thin sheets of paper.

PM Modi gifted a Madhya Pradesh-origin Gond art painting to newly-elected Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the sources said.

Gond paintings are one of the most admired tribal art forms. The word ’Gond' comes from the expression ’Kond' which means ’green mountain'.

These paintings, created by dots and lines, have been a part of pictorial art on walls and floors of Gonds and it is done with the construction and re-construction of each and every house, with locally available natural colours and materials like charcoal, coloured soil, plant sap, leaves, cow dung and limestone powder.

Gond art is considered very similar to the aboriginal art of Australia. The aborigines have their own stories like the Gonds do about creation.

These two art forms are divided by thousands of miles of physical distance between their creators but are closely united and connected in their sentimentality and emotional core which are the definitive features of any art form, the sources said.

Prime Minister Modi gifted a wooden hand-carved box with Rogan painting to his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida.

This art object is a combination of two different arts -- Rogan painting and wooden hand carving, the sources said.

Rogan painting is an art of cloth printing practised in the Kutch district of Gujarat. In this craft, paint made from boiled oil and vegetable dyes is laid down on fabric using either a metal block (printing) or a stylus (painting).

The craft nearly died out in the late 20th century, with Rogan painting being practised by only one family.

The word ’Rogan' comes from Persian, meaning varnish or oil. The process of making Rogan painting is very laborious and skilful.

Prime Minister Modi also gifted Pattamadai silk mats to former Japanese Prime Ministers Yoshihide Suga, Yoshiro Mori and Shinzo Abe.

Pattamadai, a small village in Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu, is the traditional home to a unique tradition of superfine silk mat weaving from 'korai' grass grown on the banks of river Tamiraparani.

The mats are hand-woven using cotton or silk in the weft. The use of silk thread gives a royal sheen and definite appeal to the mat.

Prime Minister Modi, US President Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida and Australia's newly-elected Prime Minister Albanese on Tuesday attended the second in-person Quad summit which took place under the shadow of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.