SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 29 March 2024, Friday |

Bangladeshi village’s painted homes become popular tourist attraction

More than three decades ago, Daykhon Barman settled in the Bangladeshi village of Tikoli, and soon, an artistic renaissance was to be followed.
Her love of art became infectious among locals with scores of women joining their new neighbor in turning the village, in the country’s northwest, into a colorful community where house walls are decorated with unique patterns and hues.
And the trend has become so popular that the village has now become a tourist attraction.

Wall painting has been practiced by the region’s Hindu community for generations with the external mud walls of houses decorated with red and white motifs.
Daykhon began to explore painting after she married a Tikoli native and moved there from a village in Chapainawabganj district, and she has used nature as her inspiration. She told Arab News: “The traditional red and white motifs looked very monotonous to me. So, I started painting flowers, trees, birds, everything from nature surrounding me.”
She started experimenting with plants and leaves to produce colorful pigments for her artworks and other women soon followed suit, regularly visiting Daykhon to learn the craft.
The decoration styles now change with the seasons and festivals. During Hindu holidays, women from the village decide which patterns and colors to use to fit the occasion and more than half of Tikoli’s 160 properties have Hindu households.
Village council representative, Mohammad Taslim Uddin, said: “Here almost every house of the Hindu community is decorated with wall paintings and a few Muslim houses were also recently decorated.”
The tradition not only brings color to the village but also attracts domestic visitors and foreign tourists.