Who is an Artisan ?
Who are they ? What they do ?
What if I tell you that they were one of the most important sections of our society few hundred years back? So what happened to them. Why are they not talked about that much today? These are few questions which needed to be asked not from someone else but from our own inner conscience.
The artisans are those people who are skilled in making handmade products.
Okay, to give you an idea. You must have seen some old earthen pots kept in your home for decoration or your mother’s “Zari wali Saree” or a beautiful basket with amazing work of embroidery on it which your mother bought. So, yeah all of them were made by an artisan.
Why I don’t know about artisans?
Generally, people do not talk much about the Artisans because in this fast paced society where everyone is in hurry. An art like this is being sidelined because these skills demands patience and time which no one is willing to invest now-a-days. But now you know who is an artisan. Artisans also had a vital role in exit of the East India Company because they were in a stronger position of producing handmade goods in India. So, this was also a reason that East India Company was called off by the queen of Great Britain. Today, the situation is opposite of that, now they are among the most exploited sections of the society who doesn’t even get equal worth of the amount of the hard work they put in to make a product. These people are having hard time both financially and emotionally in the present scenario. This is the situation they are living in but things were not the same earlier. There were kings back in the days who used to reward artisans for their work which used to encourage them to make more masterpieces and pass on the legacy of this traditional art to the succeeding generation.
What can we do to help them?
We will consider these points in the further blogs. Now there are no more kings in India and we are left with the big question that whether we are capable enough to preserve this beautiful art and encourage these artists once again.
To know more about this, stick around and we will keep this discussion continue in this series of blogs on artisans.
To be continue…
