About twenty minutes before one reaches Santiniketan on a train ride from Kolkata, the train stops at a rather nondescript small town called Ghuskara. Most tourists to Santiniketan would not be able to recall the name.
But for me Ghuskara is very special. Because about 10 km from the station is the village of Dariapur, the address of bronze casters of Birbhum district. I have lost count of the number of times I have been to Dariapur from Santiniketan. Sometimes to visit with friends; at others, to work with the artists to create buttons or wall hooks to sell in the little store I run in Santiniketan.
The contrasts of the village fascinate me. On the one hand is the brilliance of the casters who turn wax figures into beautiful bronze ones, and on the other, extreme poverty. Thanks to my work with weavers, dyers, embroiderers and metal workers, I regularly visit their villages. But Dariapur is probably the most wretched of all. The drunken men, the women in torn sarees, the naked children inhaling the constant fumes of the clay kilns, epitomise the futility of excellence in craft. In spite of this, I cannot help but take family, friends and visitors to Santiniketan on a trip there to see what beauty hands can mould in the midst of abject degradation.
Recently we had an elderly Egyptian artist staying with us. A quick take on her aesthetic sensibilities told me that she would enjoy seeing the work of the bronze casters. We decided on a date to go. Coincidentally, a British textile designer was also visiting Santiniketan. He was excited on hearing of our trip and decided to join us. The three of us hired an Ambassador and set off early in the morning. The thirty-five km road from Santiniketan to Dariapur passes through hamlets and rice fields. As I fielded questions on the bronze casters, my guests were busy taking in the lushness that is Bengal even at the onset of winter.
On reaching Dariapur, I first went to the house of Harubabu, a national award winner in his craft, now old and ailing. His son, Ashok, volunteered to show us around. As we went from house to house, my guests watched through their camera lenses the wonderful moulding of the figures in wax, then covering them in clay, firing them in the tiny brick kilns and finally the pouring in of the molten brass.
While we were on our tour, many villagers kept following us, their wares in hand, and hopes pinned on the white skins. Once my guests had been through the village and understood for themselves the fantastic tradition of bronze casting, they turned to those following them with their creations.
But each man or woman showed them figures which were highly polished and had none of the trace of its origins. Strangely the only development that bronze casting seems to have seen is in mechanised buffing machines which make the metal shine like gold.
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It took the villagers a little while to get what we were after, and then all the children were sent off in various directions to retrieve things from their homes. Finally we had a little heap of bronze objects, half-broken, half still with the burnt clay sticking to them, but thankfully not shiny. My friends jumped on the loot and found their treasures. The villagers kept telling us how most of their customers want only the shiny ones.
As we headed home, the mood was sombre. As always, visitors to the village cannot help being affected by the conditions around. The question in their hearts, as they fondle their recently acquired treasures, is whether they would be able to return to this haven of craftsmanship. Would the demands that the new marketplace is making on the craftsmen destroy their craft completely?