It was 2003. I had shifted to Santiniketan from Mumbai and was restless to use my days in a way that could blend all that I had learnt in my corporate avatar in Mumbai with all that I was gleaning from my new semi-urban existence in Santiniketan.
The opportunity arrived when a few of us in Santiniketan decided that we start a "haat" every Saturday afternoon to sell crafts and vegetables. We felt that there were many artists and artisans who were being pushed by middlemen to produce what they thought was "saleable" and the artistic merit of what was being created was taking a nosedive.
Instead, we thought, if we created a space where the producers could sit with whatever they wanted to create, customers could get a chance to see what they do not see in the usual craft shops dotting Santiniketan.
We started in November with four simple rules: no use of plastic, either in products or packaging; no lighting of fires for food preparation, because we were sitting on forest land; no middlemen, only producers would be able to sit in the haat; and only locals. Needless to say, it was not an easy task. The 10 of us - founder members - sat every Saturday with our mats on the forest floor adjoining Santiniketan and tried selling our "aesthetic" wares. For the first six months, braving the heat and the rain, we sat only to buy from each other. Despite the initial lack of interest, we were unified in our idea that we would not hype the event to get more people. Slowly but surely the tourists who flock to Santiniketan every Saturday got to know - purely through word of mouth - and we started getting actual buyers.
Over the years, the haat grew much larger than we had anticipated, both in terms of sellers and visitors. Finally the haat represented almost all the crafts of Birbhum district and had almost an equal representation of Hindu, Muslim and tribal artisans. But it was getting increasingly difficult to maintain the aesthetic quality with which we had started. The founders often debated the right strategy to steer the haat in the way we had originally envisaged.
But the dilemma was whether to encourage an elitist aesthetic space or one that provided maximum livelihood. Since we were occupying forest land, we did not have any moral authority to decide on who should sell and who shouldn't, eliminating on the basis of the quality of wares. Many of the founders were unable to resolve this conflict in their minds and participated less and less in the weekly market. Not that the haat missed them, because by then the sellers were about 200-strong and it was a thriving "go to" place for tourists.
Before long the haat spawned many clones and similar gatherings came up near the original one; worse, they became permanent shops. Many of the earlier haat members I met complained of a dip in sales, thanks to the oversupply of the same crafts with no new design inputs. We founders often lamented that what had started "small and beautiful" had turned "big and ugly".
Our concern turned to alarm when Mamata Banerjee in a recent visit to the district announced that the state government would earmark 50 acres for a "biswa khudra bazaar" or "world small market", where women from self-help groups (SHG) could sell their wares. Some well-meaning bureaucrat must have thought if these silly endeavours by small groups could turn haats into such tourist attractions, a government-sponsored 50 acres would only multiply it. And, of course, that would imply structures, some pretend village huts made of cement, some landscaping - general good news for contractors. What would the SHG women sell there? Who would guide them on new designs? If you have 50 acres, who needs to worry about such trifles?
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