It's a story (or several stories) in a box. It's a travelling shrine. Art, folklore, and storytelling fold neatly into a box called a Kavad. You can think of a Kavad as a colourful cupboard, where panels unfold to tell stories of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, tales from the life of Krishna, images of the Dasavatara, local legends, and more. Made in Rajasthan, these can be small boxes, or elaborate, with moving and folding panels, ultimately revealing a central deity. Made largely of wood, all the surfaces -- front and back-- are painted, often in the local folk styles, which absorbed Rajput painting idioms.

The Kavad in the picture was made around the 1900s, and depicts the life of Krishna. One can imagine a storyteller holding an intimate audience captive around this little box telling stories everyone knows but still loves to hear!