Artist Profile: Kusumi Mandal

1. The artist Kusumi Mandal lives by herself most of the time, as her husband is away in the state of Punjab in India. He works for a big agricultural company and visits home about twice a year during festive season.

Artist Profile: Shardha Thakur

The artist Shardha Thakur is a mother of two children. Her husband is a potter who makes clay pots and pottery for the village. He is known for his hard work and finely made potteries. However, the money that her husband makes is hardly enough to feed her family. Hence Shardha is glad to be at the Institute during her free time in the afternoons and wants to save the extra money that she earns for times of emergency.

Artist Profile: Rani Pandey

The artist Rani Pandey is a mother of two daughters and two sons. Her husband works in the fields of the landlords in Halkhori village. He also goes abroad to Punjab in India during off season to make some extra money to better feed hi s family and to be able to send his children to school. With the extra money that Rani earns from the Institute, she hopes to save it for any medical emergencies.

Artist Profile: Sawari Mandal

The artist Sawari Mandal lives with her in laws. She has two daughters, both of which are very young. Her husband works for a big agricultural company and visits home about twice a year during festive season. Sawari mandal is glad that she joined the institute since she can spend her free time into doing creative paintings and also earn extra money to save for the future of her children.

Artist Profile: Sanju Baitha

1. The artist Sanju Baitha is a young woman of around twenty but she does not exactly know her age. Her husband is a local builder who builds brick houses for people in the village. She lives in a joint family with her two sisters in laws, their husbands and her own father in law and mother in law. She currently has a daughter who is two years old. Sanju wants to save the extra money from the Institute towards the education of her daughter once she grows up.

Artist Profile: Shakuntala Pandey

When I asked her about her age, Sakuntala could not tell since her birth has not been recorded anywhere and no one has cared about her age so far. Why would anyone living in a village, doing household chores, taking care of children and feeding the cattle need to know one's age?

She is a mother of four children, three elder daughters and a son being the youngest of all. She explained that she need to have a son because he would carry the family name and when she and her husband died in future, he would incinerate their body, giving them safe passage to heaven. She also explained further that it was difficult to feed her four children but it was a small price to pay if she wanted a son.

Her eldest daughter was married off at an age of fifteen few hours away from Halkhori village. She said that she had the burden of marrying off two more daughters. She seemed little worried about getting resources for the dowry that she would have to pay during her daughters' marriages. However, she exclaimed that she was happy to be at the Jurshital Institute, which took her away from her usual family worries and responsibilities. She said that at the Institute she had time for herself and her beautiful creations of Mithila art.

Artist Profile: Kamani Devi

Kamani lives with her husband, Raman, two sons and a mother in law. However, her elder son lives four hours away with her sister in a village that has a better education facilities. The only source of income for her family is agriculture.

Years ago, her husband's elder brother, Chumman, was working as an illegal agent for sending laborers for manual jobs to countries such as Iran, Iraq, Dubai, Qatar, South Arabia, etc. Months later, the international immigration laws became highly strict due to September 11 tragic event, making it almost impossible for laborers to travel internationally. Hence, Chumman could not send most of his men to foreign countries though he had already taken huge amount of frees from them. As a result, all those people wanted their money back and Chumman fled from the village, leaving behind Kamani's family to pay back his loans. Hence, they had to sell most of their farmland and it took them years of extreme hard work and saving to recover and reacquire farmland for survival.

Kamani Devi was married at an age of fifteen. Due to early marriage, she bore her first child at an age of sixteen, who was born a sick girl child. It cost Kamani lots of money and resources for the treatment of her daughter but she died at an age of five. After that she gave birth to two more girls and they died as well.

However, she finally gave birth to two sons at later age of about twenty and twenty two. Due to these safer ages of bearing children, both her child were born healthy and she is now happy as a mother of two healthy sons. She is glad to have joined Jurshital Institute, as she hopes to gain some extra money to send her second son to her sister in law's house as well for a better education. She thinks that access to better education to both her sons will result into a better future of her family.