A struggle to preserve Laxmi Puja posters with ‘Nepali’ Laxmi

Dipping his brush in yellow paint, Dipesh Chitrakar starts outlining a mandala. He picks up green and colours Kuber’s clothes in the background and red to colour the bright sari [of Goddess Laxmi]. He chooses colour after colour and brings a black-white print to life. At last, he outlines the whole picture in red and leaves it to dry.

Every October, Chitrakar repeats this process multiple times. What the 26-year-old is doing is making posters for Laxmi Puja.