In this painting, Ravana is shown trying to wake his giant brother Kumbhakarna from his six month slumber. It took him tremendous effort to wake Kumbhakarna. At the centre, Kumbhakarna sits down to eat, amidst piles of meat, casks of wine and animals waiting to be slaughtered. He seeks Ravana’s blessing to enter the battlefield. The next scene shows him swinging into action, swallowing and crushing Rama’s army of warrior monkeys, who run frenziedly all over the battlefield.The use of bright red background is characteristic of the Cherial paintings where mostly primary colours are employed. Andhra painters are traditionally trained as painters of murals, or scrolls and some of them Kalamkari, a method of painting natural dyes onto cotton or silk fabric with a bamboo pen or 'kalam'. It is very rare that they paint scenes from the Ramayana on individual pieces of cloth retaining the mural tradition of painting the narrative of the story in registers. The survival of craftsmen who could reproduce the traditional style even in the 20th century is a rare phenomenon.
