PUTTING a man in creative touch with stone — or metal or wood or textile — is sometimes a means of putting him in touch with his soul. It was a conviction that fuelled Mahatma Gandhi's espousal of the evocative emblem of the charkha. It formed the bedrock of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay's belief that the only way the country could be gainfully employed was through the growth of crafts. And it certainly remains the credo that inspires the unflagging zeal and grit of Roshan Kalapesi, patron of Paramparik Karigar, an association of craftspersons formed to preserve and promote the traditional arts.
Kalapesi's commitment to crafts was clearly the result of an unlikely turn of events in the life of a chemistry-student-turned-theatre-director- turned-businesswoman. ``It happened when I had just returned to Mumbai to take up my father's business in the 1960s, after several years of theatre work overseas,'' reminisces Kalapesi. ``My costume design for a Shakespeare play prompted someone to approach me to design an exhibition of leather for a German commercial delegation. That established me as a fashion designer overnight. I was flooded with offers. I even designed the wardrobe for Reita Faria, the first Indian Miss World. But I shut shop soon after that. I guess I wasn't really interested in designing garments to cater to Western tastes.''
Despite that decision, she found herself drawn increasingly to the world of craft by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, who had closely observed her work in design. It was at the latter's insistence that Kalapesi found herself in the position of the first president of the Crafts Council of India in 1970. ``I was reluctant to take up the post, because I knew very little about the subject. But once I was in, I made it a point to travel to villages, acquaint myself with craftsmen and their problems. I drafted the constitution for the Council and began to initiate a series of skill-enhancement workshops for craftsmen.''
Not surprisingly, several years after her tenure, when a group of 20 craftspersons approached her to become patron of a new organisation more sensitive to their needs, it seemed like the logical extension of her tryst with crafts. ``When I told Kamala that I didn't have the time, she replied that it's always the busiest people who do all the work.'' And so Paramparik Karigar (or Vishwa Karigar, as it was then called,) was born in 1980, under the joint patronage of Chattopadhyay and Kalapesi, marking ``the first registered body of craftsmen responsible for their own future''.
``The office-bearers of the organisation are craftsmen. Non-crafts-people have no vote and work on a purely voluntary basis,'' elucidates Kalapesi with pride. ``We work towards making the craftsmen independent through skill-improvement workshops and enhancing opportunities to sell their work.''
Kalapesi's endorsement of a participatory approach is rooted in a vision that seeks to empower artisans to become architects of their own destiny. ``I believe the issue isn't craft, it's the craftsmen — their problems, their needs,'' she declares. ``Their primary problem is often survival. And we at Paramparik Karigar realise that our intervention needs to be sensitive. The idea is not to make craftsmen rich and fat, but to enable them to live in dignity.''
Which explains her ire at designers who foster an assembly-line approach to craft by issuing bulk orders of artefacts. ``If you take away a craftsman's creativity, you leave him with drudgery. And the result is invariably dead craft.''
Her eclectic background in science and business, she believes, has enabled her to make suggestions without encroaching on the artisans' artistic autonomy. ``For instance, there was a fabulous toy-maker in Karnataka who used chemical dyes to colour his toys. I pointed out that apart from the colours being ghastly, they were also dangerous for children. I then introduced him to a Kalamkari craftsman who taught him how to make organic dyes. Since then, his sales have improved dramatically!''
Her experience in Bastar and recently at Jharkhand have convinced her that in addition to skill workshops, there is a need for regular Human Resource Development (HRD) courses to address psychological needs and basic education in costing and pricing to safeguard against exploitation. ``For instance, the potter's wife often prepares the clay, but only the potter's labour is recognised. This needs to be factored in when pricing the work.''
She is aware that such interactions need to be anchored to a sound system of ethics. ``A moral code is what our country needs today, and I've found that even in this sphere, if you don't have a sense of values, the craft isn't good.'' Working with the many craftsmen of the organisation has been a revelation of the deeply humane, eco-sensitive world-view implicit in the traditional arts of the country. ``For instance, the Mithila craftsmen use colours drawn from flowers, leaves and peels, but there is an unwritten code that they never use anything edible, and always take flowers that have already fallen to the ground.''
She also recalls a deeply moving moment at a recent HRD seminar when a Lucknowi bead-maker spoke of how he had begun to conduct evening classes to impart craft-training to the local unemployed in his lane. It was, for Kalapesi, a reaffirmation of the tremendous acts of generosity possible when a person is offered a chance to lead a life of dignity.
An index of Paramparik Karigar's achievement, she highlights, is the fact that all the craftspersons' children have chosen to continue with their hereditary vocation. ``The Mithila craftsman's son studied computer art and fashion design, but eventually even he freely opted to return to his father's craft.''
Though sustained by corporate and government grants, Paramparik Karigar has had to negotiate the usual uphill task to meet its aspirations. A key aim, says Kalapesi, is to erase the artificial schism between art and craft. ``Barring the work of a few painters, most of the modern art in this country is blatantly imitative, but we still have a problem awarding crafts the recognition given to the arts.'' She regards the National Gallery of Modern Art's decision to host a Paramparik Karigar exhibition in 1999 as a milestone in this regard.
A closely allied objective is to promote an awareness of the integral ways in which crafts entail an integrated labour of body, mind and soul. ``I'll never forget the carver from Karnataka who told me that when he saw a block of wood or stone, he could already see its inherent design. His job, he said, was just about bringing that form to life.''
She hopes a series of craft manuals for schoolteachers, authored for the first time by craftsmen themselves, will encourage schools all over the country to introduce craft as an integral part of the curriculum for children between the ages of eight and 12. ``As Indians, we all have karigari in our hands, and this inherent talent needs to be explored.''
And yet, her perspective is not one of romantic jingoism about tradition either. ``I do feel that the Shilpa Shastra, the ancient and wonderful text on the subject, needs to be upgraded. I'm all for introducing new materials and implements where their introduction can remove the drudgery from craft.'' A recent organisational venture, therefore, is a series of workshops between contemporary designers and craftspersons, though she is careful to ensure that the relationship doesn't turn subtly hegemonic, and the latter's creativity is not imperilled.
From workshops to exhibitions, from craft manuals to future plans to train middlemen — Kalapesi is clearly not short of steam or ambition at present. ``When I had the energy, I didn't have the money. Now that Paramparik Karigar has the money, I'm in bed coping with a heart problem,'' she remarks wryly.
But as she hunches doggedly over the proofs of her crafts manuals, you sense that it's going to take something more than a cardiac ailment to put the brakes on Kalapesi's chronic dynamism.