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The Last Families Keeping Cheriyal Alive

An Afternoon in the Workshop

In a small lane of a small Telangana town, the afternoon light falls on wooden shelves filled with painted faces. Blue, red, yellow, green—tiny characters from old stories stare silently at the world outside. The faint smell of tamarind seed paste, wood powder, and paint fills the room. A radio plays old Telugu songs. Children pass by the open doorway, peeking in for a moment before running off to chase each other.

Inside, a family bends over wooden panels and masks. Their hands move steadily, without hurry, without complaint. They are among the last families keeping Cheriyal alive.

How a Scroll Became a Voice

Cheriyal scroll painting is not new. It is older than most towns on the Telangana map. It began as a visual storytelling tradition for rural audiences who had no books, no microphones, no screens. Traveling bards carried these long painted scrolls village to village. Sitting under neem trees or on temple steps, they sang stories of Pandavas, village goddesses, local heroes, farmers, and hunters. The scrolls unfolded like cinema reels—each panel showing a scene, each colour carrying emotion.

For generations, Cheriyal helped people learn history and culture not through textbooks, but through eyes and ears. It shaped the imagination of the region. It gave identity to stories that otherwise would have been forgotten.

The Making: Soil, Story, and Steady Hands

The making of Cheriyal looks simple from far away. Up close, it is a quiet struggle between patience and perfection. First comes the canvas—khadi cloth coated with tamarind seed paste and white mud sourced from local fields. It dries under the sun until the surface becomes smooth and strong.

Then the drawing begins. Outlines are sketched freehand. No projectors. No tracing. Just memory and muscle. Characters take shape one by one—eyes full of expression, limbs shaped in lively motion, animals with proud posture.

When the colours arrive, the workshop turns festive. Red for background, blue for gods, yellow for ornaments, green for forests. The paints are mixed by hand, not squeezed from tubes. Brushes are made from squirrel hair. Every stroke remembers an older stroke taught by someone who learned it decades before.

When a scroll finally dries, it is not just a painting. It is a story that can travel without speaking.

The Families Who Refuse to Forget

The artists who keep Cheriyal alive do not wear badges that say “Traditional Artisan”. They sit on the floor, among paint cups and dust, often with children doing homework nearby. Their days are long but familiar. Breakfast, workshop, lunch, workshop, tea, workshop. Evenings are sometimes spent packing pieces for exhibitions or online orders—if there are orders.

Children learn by watching. The younger ones copy rough figures on scrap cloth. The older ones help fill colours or carry finished pieces to dry. Elders correct mistakes not with speeches, but with touch—“this hand should bend this way”, “this goddess needs more gold”, “this eyeshape is wrong”.

Their pride is gentle. They don’t say they are saving an art form. They say, “Idhi maa panulu” (this is our work).

Struggles Quietly Hidden in the Colours

But behind the colours lies a long list of challenges. The storytellers who once narrated scrolls have vanished as entertainment moved to TVs and smartphones. The market for scrolls collapsed decades ago. Today, artists adapt by making masks, keychains, wall hangings, and panels—smaller, cheaper, easier to sell.

Yet the income rarely matches the skill or time. Raw materials are costly. Customers prefer factory-made décor. Middlemen take the largest share. Exhibitions and fairs happen only sometimes. Many scrolls remain unsold, collecting dust.

The younger generation sees the difficulty and often chooses other careers. Not because they dislike Cheriyal, but because Cheriyal does not pay bills easily.

So the workshops that once echoed with story and paint are now fewer every year.

Government Efforts & The Ground Truth

There are government schemes, awards, and cluster programs for handicrafts. Training sessions, exhibitions, GI tags, financial assistance, and subsidies have been introduced. Some artists have been honored with national awards. These are important and valuable steps.

But ground reality remains uneven. Support is not always consistent. Market linkages are weak. Bureaucracy is heavy. Many artisans are unaware of schemes until too late. Recognition does not always convert into livelihood.

The gap between policy and survival still remains wide.

Why Cheriyal Matters Today

In a world that scrolls on phone screens, Cheriyal scrolls remind us of how storytelling began. They preserve folk narratives that exist nowhere else—not in publishing houses, not in universities, not on streaming platforms.

They teach slowness in a culture addicted to speed. They teach memory in a time of forgetting. They teach connection without Wi-Fi.

Cheriyal belongs to Telangana not as a product, but as a living archive of its imagination.

What People Feel When They Hold It

When someone finally brings home a Cheriyal mask or scroll, they don’t just hang décor on a wall. They bring home:

• stories older than their grandparents • colours mixed by hand • a tradition that refuses to die • the stubborn dignity of artists who stayed when everyone left

Cheriyal does not shout for attention. It sits quietly, letting the eyes slowly discover details. The longer you look, the deeper it speaks.

A Quiet Reminder

Traditional crafts do not survive because of pity. They survive because people care enough to notice. They survive when someone asks, “Who made this?” instead of “How cheap is it?”

If we forget the last families keeping Cheriyal alive, we lose not just art but memory. If we remember them, future generations will still hear stories in colour, not only in pixels.

Closing

In the end, Cheriyal is not just a painting tradition. It is a thread that connects past to present, elders to children, stories to soil. May these colours continue to dry in the afternoon sun. May the last families never become the last memory.

To know more about this living heritage, visit: https://handembriderynagaram.com

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