He is 18 going on 19, says Rajan Vankar with a shy smile, as he shows us dupattas, stoles, saris and shawls woven by his family and friends back home in Bhuj that he has carried all the way to the Crafts Bazaar organised by the Crafts Council of Tamil Nadu (CCTN). He too weaves but it has always been his dream to do something extra to promote the family craft far and wide.
Vankar is a computer engineering student who wants to ace his marketing skills, he says. He is happy to explain each motif on the deep green-and-garnet stole with thread and mirror work. There is not a shadow of a frown on his face as we crowd him and demand to be shown this, that and more.
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This gives one hope that not all gen next craftspeople are drifting away from their traditional professions. With technology, help from designers and support from NGOs, things are happening. For example, right here in Coimbatore, thanks to the initiative of CCTN President Jayashree Ravi and her team, the faculty from the DJ Academy of Design interacted with the visiting craftspeople, a day before the bazaar. Their discussion centred around marketing tips, display ideas and use of social media and ways and means to better promote their craft. Secretary of CCTN Sujani Balu said the move was warmly welcomed. “The craftspeople were urged to hold on to their uniqueness and not compromise their quality. At the same time they were encouraged to come up with new designs that marry different crafts traditions,” said Balu.
We already see some of that happening at the bazaar. Haidar Arora, who works magic with Bandhini, has incorporated Shibori tie-and-dye with Ajrakh on silk.
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Elsewhere, Mahesh and Suresh Kushwar from Ferozabad in UP have reached out to artisans in Jaipur who specialise in thread work. The result is some exquisite blown-glass necklaces. “We have glassware like the ones you may have seen in Morano,” says Mahesh, not without pride. He acknowledges the help of design students who gave them ideas that would find favour with the market. The Kushwars are ready to take orders and courier their beautiful glassware to customers. But for the moment they have enough and more to satisfy the Coimbatoreans. The glass jhumkas are unbelievably beautiful, as are the cleverly crafted glass birds. Before I leave, I greedily scoop up several glass pendants that are just the perfect gift.
A strident voice singing a Bengali song draws me to Bapi Chitrakar. From Midnapore district of Bengal, he and his wife Tager Chitrakar paint the patachitra (this is different from the Odiya ones, Bapi points out). Holding aloft a painting of a school of fish, he says like that every painting has a story and a song attached to it. He breaks in to the song of a fish that is upset at not being invited for a family wedding! “We still go from door to door and sing these stories and people give us money or grains in exchange,” he says. Tager says the colours are all from ghas , patta , beej or grass, leaves and seeds.
The Nature leitmotif is repeated through the bazaar. Pressed leaves decorate lampshades, the husk of wheat transform into baskets, jewellery caskets and masala dabbas , and rivers and mountains are picked out delicately in weaves, block prints and embroidery. Check out the Phulkari work from Punjab, or ask Raksha Bhatt about how she sources antique patches of embroidery from Bhuj and uses them in her blouse pieces, kurta materials and so on. Bhatt has an attractive collection of ready-to-stitch kurtas and blouses, a convenient invention. She says she visits villages that are located in difficult-to-access areas where women are happy to earn an income without leaving their hearth and home.
Similarly, Bhakti Parekh has women from a small village near Tughlaqabad making quilts from leftover scraps of cloth. Parekh has a collection of patchwork quilts that she markets under the brand name Brahma. They range between ₹1, 800 to ₹3, 200 depending on the size. Now she is onto a project of recycling old garments into bed covers and quilts with the help of women from a North Karnataka village. Outdoors there are terracotta pots, juttis in a rainbow of colours, candles and agarbattis, plenty of metal craft and more.
This is just a tasting menu of the feast that awaits visitors at the Crafts Bazaar 2018.
On until August 7, (10.00 am to 8.00 pm) at Suguna Kalyana Mandapam, Avinashi Road