How can you resist a name like Forest Floor? It immediately conveys a sense of quiet rustling, glimpses of red berries, a carpet of green and yellow leaves, scurrying ants… Medha Bhatt has taken inspiration from there and designed her entire collection of bags, tea cosies, bedcovers, curtains and beautiful, just beautiful cushion covers. “I went to Silent Valley and made sketches of birds,” she says. So, the appliquéd Warbler, the Paddyfield Pippit, the Common Iora and other local birds flutter prettily on her cushions. It is not just about the fine work. She says how while she worked in Trivandrum she saw waste cloth being burnt on the beaches. She started by rescuing some of that cloth for her creations. “I do a lot of my work from tailor discards,” she explains. She has also made picture postcards of the beautiful bird cushion covers. Medha is from NID and currently works out of Baroda.
A few stalls away, Nandu Sharma and Natalia carefully unwrap their paintings. “These are called Phad,” says Nandu. He is from the Mewar region of Rajasthan and he narrates the history of Phad. “The word means ‘to read’. Tales of valour and gallantry of local heroes and heroines, mythological characters and stories, etc., are painted on scrolls. The Brahmin community paint the Phads and the Bhopa Community carry them village to village and perform. The Bhopi illuminates the scroll section by section with a torch she holds, and the Bhopa describes the story in the portion revealed. He does that with song and dance and constant parley with the audience who answers riddles, sings along and jumps right into the performance.” Sadly, says Nandu, the art is dying out. So many art forms are already extinct. “I worked for Infosys before a family elder told me, ‘Come back to Phad. I will pay you whatever your current employers are paying you’,” he laughs. But Nandu is optimistic that things are turning the corner and more youngsters are interested in the art.
The focus this year is on traditional Indian paintings such as Pichwai, Madhubani, Kawad, Kalamkari and so on. Suprajit Mahapatra shows how the Pattachitra work is done. “It is very hard work and I am still in the learning process,” he says. He points to the work of his gurus...It is the Ramayana in incredible detail. “It will take me another seven to eight years before I can reach that level of competence,” says Suprajit, with exemplary shishya-humility. There is more art in the form of Charma Chitrakari or leather cutwork. Stunning wall hangings, minutely perforated lamp shades with deliciously explosive colours… the variety is mind-boggling.
Crafts bazaar 2015 resonates with incredible craft from every corner of our land. Craftspeople from the North, South, East and West have brought along spectacular handicrafts from their towns and villages all the way to Coimbatore.
Whether it is the Mekhla Chador from Assam, the sultry beige, blacks and red cotton saris from Fulia (Ramananda Basak is a National Award Winner of 2009), happy looking bed linen from Khurja for children ...the bazaar has a hundred stories and more wafting around, waiting to be inhaled and savoured.
There are multi-tiered wooden spice racks, jewellery boxes, beautiful copper utensils and ohhhh the kal chattis from Tamil Nadu. Master Craftsman P. Tirupathi and his brother-in-law display stone ware, perfect to set curds in andeven to cook in. Dancing dolls, pretty thoranams , terracotta jewellery, fabric, durries, pottery, bangles, traditional board games... There are 100 stalls or more with beautiful bits and pieces of India. The Crafts Bazaar is on till July 13 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Ramakrishna Kalyana Mandapam, Avarampalayam. Credit Cards are accepted and there is ample parking space.
