Meandering through the Nature Bazaar at Dilli Haat, I was struck by the fact that Indian craftsmen have such few places to showcase their works, and more importantly, educate potential customers about their craft. After meeting Ramesh Teekam, the Gond artist who bemoaned the lack of a folk art gallery in Delhi, I met M Vishwanath Reddy, a young award-winning Kalamkari artist. Although articulate and enthusiastic, he looked a little fazed when he’d to explain exactly why his hand-painted textiles were more expensive than the block printed ones next door. “People in the North just don’t understand how laborious Kalamkari painting is,” said he ruefully, “even the smallest motif could take hours to create!”
Kalamkari is one of India’s ancient craft traditions in which motifs are painted on fabric with a bamboo pen (kalam). It translates as pen (kalam) craft (kari), and was most likely passed on to the printing communities on the Coromandel coast by Persian traders in the 10th century. Vishwanath is from Sri Kalahasti, where Kalamkari in India has developed and continues to flourish: “almost everyone in my hometown practices this craft. Kalamkari textiles painted by us adorn the walls and ceiling of the ancient temple of Lord Shiva there, considered the Kailash of the South. Pilgrims come from far and wide, and constitute our regular market,” said he.
Vishwanath was born into a family of artists. “I learnt Kalamkari after school,” said he. Today, his sketching skills are well known. “To maximise our output, we have a workshop with about 40 artisans who fill in colours into motifs that we paint. This way the less skilled artists get trained, and we can produce the best pieces in the shortest time,” said he.
The problem, however, is marketing, for products of this laborious craft don’t come cheap. It could take Vishwanath and his team as many as twenty days to paint an intricate, multi-coloured design on a sari. “I tell people, it’s possible to block print thousands of these motifs in a day — but to paint each using a complicated resist-dyeing process, takes time,” said Vishwanath. Yet people are often put off by the high price.
Craft demonstrations, I suggested, could help people understand exactly what they were buying. “I do demonstrate how to do Kalamkari, and people always find it greatly interesting. But it’s physically impossible for me to do it all day,” he countered. He just had to talk about his craft to sell it, I said. “Not everyone has the time to listen, though,” said he ruefully. So I stood on one side of his stall to see for myself.
He began sketching a peacock on some fabric using a burnt tamarind twig. In a matter of minutes, the sketch was done. “That was quick,” said I. “This was the easy part, which most children start with. The difficult part is going over this with the bamboo pen. Then each colour is filled in, one at a time. The cloth needs to be washed in running water after each colour application,” he said, bending over the cloth. A woman came close, curious about what he was doing.
She looked at the pile of saris, exclaiming over their price. Then her teenage daughter came up and said, “Come on mom, that design is so old fashioned!” Vishwanath hadn’t a chance to explain how painstakingly that ‘old fashioned’ design had been made. This was where, I felt, Dastakar and other craft organisations could help by creating craft directories and catalogues. Clearly, someone else needs to market the works of people like Vishwanath and Teekam, so that they’re free to do what they’re best at — painting.