Remembering the Elementary Elements
Earliest memories of craft take me back to my ‘earliest memories’ themselves. The reasons for me to remember them that way, are numerous and varied.
To begin with, this elemental thought of mine rooted from the very terms I’ve learnt so far, which have been used to describe a craft in most appropriate ways… Further leading me to the question, what truly is craft, if ripped off from these definitions, representations and connotations?
For me, this entire field of interest is not something which is to be newly acquired by most. It’s just something that is made relatable through these certain terms.
Even before I knew the ‘value’ of it all, barely did I realize how deeply connected I already was to the crafts. My grandparents’ home, was situated in a small village located in East Singhbhum, Jharkhand, where I went during the holidays. The place had traces from the native state’s ancestral tribe populace, along with a Bengali culture, from the neighbouring state of West Bengal, which is still reflected in the daily practices today. It was a house with neatly done mud plastered walls, locally produced tiled roofs and an inward looking courtyard, surrounded with individual rooms. During festivities, it was this same courtyard where we played while my grandmother used to prepare her floor & wall canvases, by applying a mixture of mud, cow dung & husk, before she got on to make some really beautiful ‘alponas’. Alponas there, are floor art done using rice powder mixed with wild resins for permanence. While walls were decorated with hand painted designs of all sorts. The procurement and selection of sources of these colours was as indigenous and interesting as the paintings themselves. The colours used were various coloured soils and beautiful oxides found at the foothills surrounding these pockets and often natural plant dyes.
These were much similar to the Santhal Wall Art, among other paintings of the different tribes, one may come across in the state of Jharkhand. The wall paintings range from geometrical patterns to organic patterns, and even imagery of humans, animals and plants. The visual aesthetics however changes with lifestyles, economic structures, and geographical areas. It also differs among communities within the tribe, and is also shaped by the occasions during which the paintings are done.
But it wasn’t just the aesthetics which involved the crafts. It extended to a lot of material things we put to everyday use, such as the jute cot on which we slept, the cane baskets which kept lying around, or the broom made with palm leaves to sweep the floor, adorned with hand weaved carpets… Our house was full of such things.
In fact, crafts have always been an intangible part of most of the households in India; not necessarily as prized possessions or heirlooms, but as elements intertwined with our daily lives. And now sadly enough, they’ve just remained as nostalgia for individuals, completely overlooking the fact how they’ve instead always actually been cultural memories to a clan, a village, a civilization… taking together every aspect of our lives forward.
So, when somebody asks when did I learn or inculcate an interest towards crafts, I’d say, I never did. I just got reminded. Did you?
Text and images by Anamika Sonai |Nirmisu
