The Hindu Business Line : Crafts and the city

Bangaloreans snapped up handmade paper, organic grains and exquisite crafts, as they reconnected with an eco-friendly, natural world at Dastkar's Nature Bazaar, held for the first time outside Delhi.

Rameshwari sits amidst a dazzling display of sequin-trimmed bandhini skirts, dupattas and block-printed garments at Dastkar's 12th Nature Bazaar in Bangalore. For the first time the crafts event has moved out of Delhi.

She represents the distance that 23 million Indian craftspersons have travelled since six women came together to set up Dastkar in 1981 to improve the economic status of craftspeople and promoting traditional crafts.

Does her journey with the 150 crafts groups from 19 states parallel Dastkar's evolution?

Shyly adjusting her pallu over her head, Rameshwari from Dastkar Ranthambhor, says, "Over the past 15 years, I've learnt so much. I've travelled to Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and here with their bazaars. I realise that city customers today like less patchwork on their garments. They prefer sitaras, instead. That's what we bring them now, along with household things like table mats and runners."

Traumatised by the relocation when the Ranthambhor tiger sanctuary was formed, Rameshwari's self-esteem today — like her 150 women colleagues — stems from the Rs 2,000-odd she earns monthly from her 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily stint. It empowers her to voice her opinion in the village community, and helped get her three offspring married despite being a widow.

But it wasn't always so. As Laila Tyabji, Chairperson of Dastkar, explains, "Post-Independence, people like Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya brought crafts that were primarily for rural use or for a patron audience into the urban consciousness. But this was driven by the Government. By 1981, craft was too static, too expensive for the average person. The young regarded craft as a boring part of the past."

Laila's words loop back to a living Indian tradition, to skills that had gradually disappeared globally.

When Dastkar was initiated, the signs of the times were clear. For instance, Rajasthani leather-workers had adopted plastic footwear.

"Hundreds of traditions, designs and motifs just disappeared," Laila observes. "We wanted to act as a bridge between rural craftspeople and the urban consumer. Desi pride was in evidence when men started wearing kurtas and angavastras. We began using Indian craft in contemporary garments, and hand skills in interiors. We were instrumental in bringing the products to the market, along with design inputs."

Dastkar's first mela with 16 crafts groups took Delhi by surprise. "To buyers then, it was novel to see craftspeople selling their own products. Today, they move from place to place equipped with mobile phones. That's despite a setback in the mid-1990s because of liberalisation. At that point, the young seemed obsessed by Levi jeans and Benetton T-shirts. Over the past three years, there has been a resurgence, perhaps because hand skills have become extraordinarily valuable abroad. And we do get our messages from them — like shibori and crinkled skirts... But Dastkar never had any macro plan for the world."

At the bazaar in Bangalore, crowds throng to quirky leather puppets from Rajasthan, refined pottery from the Himalayan foothills, kalamkari fabric from Masulipatnam, embellished Lambani-style garments from Sandur, and much more. As Rajasthan's Langa musicians fill the evening air with their haunting strains and delicate Gotipua child dancers from Orissa communicate their amazing grace, Bangaloreans reconnect with the eco-friendly, natural world — as they reach out for handmade paper, organic grains and herbal medicines.

Teenagers and young professionals snap up vegetable-dyed, block-printed Rajasthani fabric, muted Bhagalpur silks, styled embroidery from Bhuj, and embroidered leather jooties. Dastkar today is a big brand name.

Aliya Ramaswamy, a designer with Murshidabad's Katna's Kanthas, agrees. Working with 280 Muslim women in 14 villages, the Street Survivors India project has linked education with women's empowerment since 1998. That evolved into the Swyam Shakti initiative that taps the region's traditional lep kantha, where close running stitches redefine old fabric. As pants, bedspreads, dupattas or even trendy tops in vivid hues.

"We started with Dastkar just last November, the only mela we do. Because it's important to create a space for our identity, for what we're trying to do," says Aliya. But she adds ruefully, "Though we sold goods worth Rs 60,000 in one day, it's disheartening to find buyers in a hurry. They are too busy stocking up for their stores or paying with a Gold credit card to listen to our story."

Jennifer Liang, who co-founded ANT (Action Northeast Trust) five years ago with her doctor husband, sums up the Bodo women's weaving programme that brings her to Bangalore with gorgeous wraparound skirts, blouses, kurtas in textured weaves. "We work with about 100 of the poorest women in 15 villages today, though we began with just 25. We hope to have a turnover of about Rs 20 lakh this year, but our main problem is capital. Bazaars generate instant cash that help repay bank loans... But because infrastructure in the northeast is so poor, our goods started out for Bangalore about six weeks ago!"

What sustains ANT? "Bodos are known as bomb-makers and bridge-blowers. We're trying to create a new identity for them as weavers of beautiful cloth," says Jennifer. An apt instance of Dastkar acting as a bridge. So is the Urmul Marusthali Bunkar Vikas Samiti at Phalodi, near Jodhpur. In a stall bright with embroidered bolster and cushion covers, mats and pouches, its marketing manager Rewataram Panwar says, "In 1986, the only fabric we traditionally made was the pattu or woollen wrap. From 30 to start with, we now work with 200 families, earning about Rs 1.5 crore annually. Dastkar's biggest support has been in terms of design, colour and cut. That's how we diversified into kurtas, bags and runners, even working in fine cotton. Dastkar is now encouraging us to try out tussar and silk."

The lifelines from Urmul, Katna's Kanthas and ANT flow through Dastkar's veins, connecting the forests, fields and rural families to urban reality and cash flow. For a synergy that spells resurgence.

But the Dastkar story only comes full circle when Laila recalls how a young Ranthambhor woman named Dhapu burnt herself to death because she lacked an economic alternative. That's while Laila lived close by, wooing Rameshwari and others like her with craft as a livelihood option.

"It became a prestige issue to me that Dhapu's children were going to learn some skill to earn their own dowries. That has happened since then," reiterates Laila. Such unvoiced stories are at the very heart of the Nature Bazaar.

Pictures by G.R.N. Somashekar

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