‘Bahu’ or many, and ‘rup’ (also roop) or form — together it means many forms or avatars. The bahurupis, a community of performers in Bengal, are not the shape-shifters of Hindu mythology. But they are the gods and goddesses you may have seen on local trains, buses, village fairs and weekly haats. Not every bahurupi is a singer, dancer, mimic or acrobat. But what they excel at is the art of make-up.
The bahurupi ’s mastery in disguise finds place in Bengali literature. One of the most notable examples is an episode in Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s semi-autobiographical novel Srikant , in which a man in the guise of a tiger sends an entire household in a remote Bengal village into panic.
Bahurupis , for centuries, survived on alms from villagers. They’d go door to door, collecting rice, pulses, vegetables, fruits, oil and old clothes from benevolent matriarchs. Most families indulged them in return for the entertainment they provided.
The present-day bahurupi cannot eke a living out of the art of disguise. Some are rickshaw-pullers; some work as porters, and many others are employed as farmhands. It’s only at carnivals, especially during the monsoons, that they get a chance to return to their legacy handed down through generations.
Shantanu Das is a Mumbai-based photojournalist