I have chosen ‘Narmada ki kahani’, one of Durgabai’s early works from 1999, which presents the whole story at a glance. Here, she paints the different episodes around an axis mundi: Narmada in her child avatar is shown atop a plantain tree with a stream at its foot. The nomad Rewa Naik, afflicted by a terrible skin disease (‘khujli’), is cured by Narmada’s holy waters. He settles down with his wife and daughter Johilla in the forest. Narmada and Johilla become inseparable and they live together like one big happy family until the day of Narmada’s wedding. Narmada is waiting for the baraat. They seem to be late, so she sends Johilla to find out the cause of delay. The bridegroom Sonbhadra (another personification of a river) mistakes Johilla for Narmada and gets married to her. Narmada is furious, she kicks Sonbhadra and Johilla and rages through the forests and rocky terrain, fighting the mace-wielding Mahabharata hero Bhim and the sage Kapil rishi, and whoever else tries to staunch her flow. In this 1999 painting, the painted characters display a doll-like innocence veined with caprice. The various episodes are shown in discreet registers rather than being fluidly integrated into a larger forest of stories, which is Durgabai’s preferred format in the current Narmada maiya series. —N.Adajania