All the time that I lived in the cities of Kolkata and Mumbai, I used to find my handsomely painted interiors a trifle boring. In Kolkata, my dad decided how to paint the walls, and in Mumbai the office administration took charge. Although I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly I disliked about the pastel-hued walls or uniformly-tiled bathrooms, I realised that every time I saw a paint commercial on TV, it only reconfirmed my distaste for the antiseptic sameness of walls.
So when I moved to Santiniketan and, for the first time in my life, had the opportunity to decide on the wall colour myself, I chose to explore my options. I had always admired the finish of the mud-house walls I came across as I visited artisans for my work. A friend suggested I try clay to plaster my cement walls. Tribal Santhali girls do this the best, and the walls are left with the beautiful texture of their hand work — the wall expanse being covered by the arches made by their arms making semi-circular movements from their elbows.
But for the best effect, my artist friend suggested we first layer the wall with a coat of cow dung, so that when the clay is applied on it, a dark tone of the cow dung is seen through the white clay. To make the colour of the dung even darker, we decided to mix some burnt straw with it. As the girls painted the walls first with the dung mix and then with clay, their fingers left a fantastic texture on the walls.
However, my father, who had worked for a paint company for half his life, was aghast. His instructions to labour entrusted with painting walls always was that there should be no brush marks. And his daughter was extolling just the opposite. Also his old loyalties were bruised when I explained to him how this method of painting the walls was not only far cheaper than the synthetic alternatives, but also most of the money spent went to the labour rather than big paint companies.
When I decided to cover the bathroom walls in burnt bamboo (so that they wouldn’t attract pests) and the floors in stones that we grind masala on (so that I am not in fear of slipping as I soap my feet), he kind of gave up on the house. But when the smell of cow dung subsided, and he recovered from the initial shock of having unfamiliar textures in the loo, I heard him having a quiet conversation with my mum about how it was different but not all bad.
Although people warned me about how the clay-painted walls would need repainting and how the bamboo would disintegrate, indigenous skills have won. In the six years that I have been in Santiniketan, I’ve had to paint my walls twice and my bathroom bamboo is still standing.
What they will not appreciate is the bonus that comes along. The dozen-odd days that the girls are in the house painting, their innocent laughter resounds through the house.
It was only last week that we completed the most recent painting exercise and the interaction between the ladies and old Bhubanbabu (our man Friday who was called in to help with the heavier jobs) was stuff of poor delight. On one occasion when Bhubanbabu was tying the scaffolding, the girls were wary to try it out. Bhubanbabu, normally taciturn, suddenly turned to the girls, admonished them for their fears, saying that the scaffolding was strong enough for him to dance on. “Should I show you?” he asked, obviously not expecting his word to be taken at face value.
“Yes,” said one of the girls “that would be nice,” while the rest burst into trilling laughter.
