Indian Handicrafts Epitome Of Design And Sustainability
it’s really a pleasure
to be here on this platform i’m here to
talk to you today about
indian handicrafts about how handicrafts
are relevant
even in today’s time and age i believe
and not only i believe
many people before me who’ve come who’ve
studied who’ve understood
indian handicrafts think of them as
epitome
of design and success i would like to
talk about first the evolution
indian handicrafts definitely started
many many many years ago we don’t even
know the exact dates of a whole lot of
things
but how do we study any culture how do
we study any material culture and how do
we know about the values of any culture
are by the kinds of books that are there
by the kinds of material
that we hold and every society as we see
has a tangible culture and an intangible
culture
and our knowledge about our
knowledge that is the kind of uh
knowledge that has been transferred
comes from a lot of
sacred texts and the religion was the
way of life
so it was not really a religion in that
sense so a whole lot of knowledge about
how
the philosophy is and about science
about
humans about the behavior about rituals
comes from the vedas and our knowledge
of design our knowledge of our
day-to-day material culture
comes either from the materials that we
see around us
materials that are excavated uh through
archaeological finds
but also through some texts they also
come
in the form of sculpture uh paintings
and of late photography but we also have
our written resources and our written
sources are the shastras like the vastu
shastra
the shilp that come from long ago after
that
we have um you know different rulers
write it in their own way
akbar has written a lot on indian
handicraft and then
we have a lot of information also
available to us from
the very recent time period which is the
british rule it is
very easy to say that yes they came here
and they captured us
but when we look at it some of them also
really valued indian handicraft and
because of that
it led to the whole you know british
rule etc because they wanted to take
the material that we have all of them
whether it is the british whether it’s
the indian or the
medieval time period whatever it is
everywhere
what we see is we do not separate art
design and craft in india
in india art craft and design are
together
and that is why one word shil defines it
and today we talk a lot about
sustainability
but when you try and look for a hindi
word for sustainability it’s very
difficult to find there’s only one word
which is called
which means there is something which is
meant to be which will stay
the whole reason is that our crafts
evolved in such a way that they were
sustainable
that they had a wonderful element of art
design and craftsmanship when i look at
any
indian craft and i’ll call it indian art
design or craft
what do i see so there are three most
important things one i see it is
functional it serves a purpose
we did not have a drawing room culture
we didn’t want things just to
you know clutter the drawing room
everything was functional
everything was sustainable
environmentally
economically sustainable it was long
lasting
why economically because it gave
livelihood to so many people there were
people associated with every craft
and it is those people they were not
daily wage workers they were craftsmen
they created on their own
they thought on their own and they made
a functional thing which was sustainable
which was also aesthetically pleasing
it’s not that i have a glass
to drink water and it doesn’t look good
it was also aesthetically pleasing
it was something which is hand done
which has an expression
it has an inspiration it fosters
creativity
and is designed to satisfy a particular
need
and it is very sustainable also like i
said because it’s long lasting
it’s environment friendly and it also
gives a lot of job opportunities
to a whole lot of people and i don’t
think if i think back about earlier
times you know when people were divided
into guilds
and different crafts and people worked
i don’t think there would have been
cases of joblessness
the the reason for this talk is how can
we bring it back how can we
make sure that this is you know how our
life is and this is how we would want it
to be
four years ago uh you know i went to a
place called rakhigarhi where there were
excavations happening
and uh they told me that the
civilization is probably eight thousand
years old
and uh when they were digging they found
amazing things they found pottery
uh and you know they found a variety of
pots
and every time when we uh
you know find material that is
archaeologically uh
there for us to see for us to understand
uh i’ve always admired the shape of a
matka
uh you know why is it that it is like
that uh
why this shape has continued for so long
and why is it
that it is uh you know a shape which
people
really make what is the use of this
shape and
incidentally i came across a long ago i
came across this report
written by charles and ray eames which
talks about
the design of a lota so charles and ray
eames
these were the people whom the
government of india had called to india
to set up the institute called nid today
so what they write in their report is of
all the objects we have seen and admired
during our visit to india
the lota that simple vessel of everyday
use
stands out as perhaps the greatest the
most beautiful
and what do they say and i quote that
the way it is to be transported it’s the
best
you know you can put it on your head you
can uh you know hold it
uh you can you know hold it at the side
so head hip
hand basket or cart very easy to tie
very easy to carry
so transport that’s important when
people traveled they needed something to
carry water in
so transport was easy two the balance
center of gravity so even when it’s
empty it stands
straight even when it’s full it has a
wonderful balance
it’s half full even then
it has a wonderful balance so at any
given point of time it has a wonderful
center of gravity
and its balance is excellent even when
you rotate it
when you pour it there’s excellent
balance
the third thing they say is that the
fluid dynamics of the problem not only
when pouring but when filling and
cleaning
so you can put your hand inside and you
can clean the entire
uh you know utensil and under
complicated motions of head carrying
slow and fast whatever you need it’s a
very very
interesting design thought out so well
its sculpture as it fits the palm of the
hand or the curve of the hip
its sculpture as complement to the
rhythmic motion of walking
or a static post at the well the
relation of
opening to volume in terms of storage
you know so the opening is small but the
storage is large
and the objects other than liquid so it
can store any kind of object
but the interesting thing what i find is
it can store a lot but because the
opening is small
when it spills a lot does not come out
immediately
the size of opening and the inner
contours in terms of cleaning
then heat transfer can you not hold it
even when it’s hot
you’ve used the small coolers so you
don’t need an extra handle
nothing extra is needed you don’t have
to really add on things to it
it is a complete shape in itself so
beautiful easy to carry
easy to hold it can hold a whole lot of
material its center of gravity is
amazing
and what they say is such a design can
only come about with
years of evolution this shape is the
best shape
whether you need to transport whether
you need to store whether you need to
clean
whatever you need to do so i think
indian design is what we now really need
to focus on
we need to go back to things that why
are they the way they are
what is it that has preserved this shape
for thousands of years
you know and that merits discussion
debate
intelligence thinking about things
design thinking as we call it
we see that not only in terms of
products in terms of clothes they were
very functional
they were sustainable and they were
aesthetically pleasing so let us say you
have a puggery and you are traveling
somewhere
but you want to lie down or you want to
dust something you open it and you use
it
you carry something in a bag which is
not a stitched bag but a portly
and then you open it and you can use the
fabric for something else
let us say you have a sari which you are
wrapping around your body
whether you gain a few inches or lose a
few inches it doesn’t really matter
you know so it’s very very sustainable
you can use that fabric for a longer
time
now this i’m talking about fabrics which
were you know off the loom which were
made into garments by drapery
when we talk about stitched fabric the
stitched fabrics
like the lehenga choli jama kurta
they’re all indian zero waste patterns
you know because the rectangular piece
of fabric has been cut
so beautifully and stitched so
beautifully that there is
almost zero fabric wastage it is not
contoured to your body in the way the
modern clothing is but
it is stitched with colors and stitched
in a manner where it utilizes the entire
fabric
so a lot of times people would cut up
the shawl and stitch
a kind of uh you know a jama or a kind
of kurta
kali and they would use every piece of
fabric today what we do
we wear very tight clothing which fits
our body and the moment we increase
in size one or two inches that garment
is
a waste completely wasted um look at
trousers and look at silver
so salvar has a tie here so if a lady
becomes pregnant she can you know
sort of tie it that way and if she’s not
she can just pull it so that is how
it is a zero waste pattern but today we
don’t do
that but we really need to go back to
zero waste pattern because the amount of
fabric wastage that is happening uh even
the
paper industry is not able to convert
everything to pulp but earlier
when we look at our earlier designs and
why am i pointing out back to the
earlier because we have to learn from
that
we’ve lost certain things we have to go
back and learn from there
this is how our patterns used to be this
is how our clothing used to be
it was good for our climate it was good
for sustainability it was good for the
earth
and it served all our purposes
we do not live in an environment where
we need stitched clothing
which is so tight all the time and when
we do that then we need air conditioners
rather we wear dhotis which are so cool
so comfortable
you won’t have all kinds of skin
allergies too but we’ve left all of that
behind
so i think we really need to revisit
that and that is why it’s important for
us to understand that
indian handicrafts evolved into
something which
we’ve lost which we now need to uh you
know continue
uh it was lost it’s not really lost i
must say it’s still living
but it’s gone down to a greater degree
because of the reason of
industrial revolution that came in
instead of industrial evolution
i also want to draw your attention to
the fact that indian crafts were of two
types
one for commerce and trade and one for
personal use
so for commerce and trade they were
commercial they were material based and
we had our people who were designers and
craftsmen
so the craftsman was a designer in
himself his family was a part of it it
was a larger unit
they worked in various departments
together their wives were assistants or
they handled parts of production
children were apprentices in villages or
in cities the head of the family was
also an entrepreneur
he could employ labor to produce more
he was also a scientist since he knew
the material well and the technology
he was a designer because he knew the
requirements of his clients
he was an artist because his work was
aesthetically pleasing
he was a craftsman and artisan he had
the skill to make it himself
he had he could make it more beautiful
if more time and energy went into it
and thus it could cost more so based on
who is going to buy uh the product you
could work on it
and based on that people were called as
potters weavers metallurgists leather
dwellers sculptor leather workers
and in hindi the local names were kumhar
bhunkar luhar jamar sunar
shilpkar all these people each artisan
each craftsperson i don’t even know
whether i should call them autism
they are all in one they are scientists
a potter knows about
the material he understands that this
is the earth with which i can create
this kind of material but not this kind
of an object so he knew the science
behind it he knew the design he had the
skill to create it
why can’t we go back there that is the
focus of today’s talk
we need to go back we need to understand
we are producing a culture of designers
who want to sit on the table and create
something but they do not have complete
understanding
and that is why we really need to focus
on it holistically
the person has to know science the
person has to know the arts he has to be
a designer
he has to understand the client he has
to understand the requirement and create
a product accordingly
and the more we get into mass production
we lose this and mass production i feel
should be
by the masses not for the masses so
that’s also important
so indian crafts were largely for
commerce and trade but then there were
many crafts that were personal crafts
and it was for personal use and gifts
for birth or marriage
so many crafts were not commercial they
were done by people to add value to
their homes or to their clothes they
were done with immense love
they included depiction of stories of
hope of wishes
and had a more personal touch these were
usually done by women in their free time
embroideries like kanta fulkari kasuti
so on and so forth were all done by
women either for themselves or for their
daughters or for gifts
they did golem on the floor every
morning you know in south india if you
see
they decorate their floor with beautiful
golems in rajasthan women made mandana
on the walls and on the floor
madhubani gondwali these were all
paintings which were done for personal
use they were not commercial crafts
they were done by tribals to tell their
stories to depict their lives
and wishes they used natural colors so
a beautiful thing they told me when i
asked them they said uh
you know that it is rice flour and it is
uh spread on the floor in a beautiful
manner so that it looks good your house
looks decorated
and it’s a feed for the ants so the ants
can come
we river every person we river every
animal we river every human being that’s
what our culture teaches us
so when we have those ants there they
can come and eat that rice flour so
it is for them so we make it fresh every
morning
don’t you see that this is so beautiful
and it is all being now replaced by
commercial
culture i hardly find a mother who
embroiders something for her daughter
today they can only buy
they will buy and gift because this love
is only depicted by how expensive you
can buy today
but that was not the case earlier and i
think it will be wonderful if we can go
back to it if we can personalize our
gifts
ourselves rather than having agencies to
personalize gifts for us
and here i would also like to add that
there’s a wonderful book called
evolution of indian
crafts and indian industry and where we
see how
in the early 19th century uh you know
because of the coming in of
the industrial revolution from the west
to india
where they would uh manufacture clothes
and sell it send it back to us
we lost a lot of our handicrafts and we
began losing them almost 200 years ago
and uh there were there were crafts that
were done in
cities and there were crafts that were
done in villages we’ve lost that
distinction now
it’s only a a kind of a a place where we
try and help and we buy out of pity for
craftsmen
and i think we should change that we
don’t need to pity anybody
they have to produce good good goods
and we need to buy them today we look at
these designs and we
only price them for their motives okay
it looks good so let’s copy it
let’s do a graphic design with this
let’s do something like that
but then all of this had a a beginning a
reason
and that is how uh you know they evolved
so not only uh you know static art
or craft or things of use indian crafts
were also a mode of communication
today we talk of circular economy and i
think i can’t give a better example than
this
here i have a picture of pabuji kaffar
which is painted in rajasthan
it’s a visual story it’s like a story
book you know how we had amer chitrakata
but there
there were these blobs for people to
tell st to speak to each other and we
could understand what they’re talking
about but here these are painted scrolls
like you know they’re all painted it’s a
visual story
and then there’s a bhopa abode who sings
the songs in the praise of the hero of
the story
and his wife usually has a diy in her
hand and she points out to characters
as in when he talks about those
characters when he recites poetry so
it’s an audio visual medium
it’s a great form of communication so
and if we look at the kind of
livelihoods somebody will commission it
somebody will paint it so you have a
whole culture of painting this in
vegetable dies telling the story
and then uh there is a whole uh
you know craft of narrating it how do
you talk about it how do you narrate how
do you
engage people in this and then the best
part is they were never stored in
museums you know they were used for a
long time and then they just
were uh you know put into the river or
when they had finished their life and
new ones were painted each date like
this has its own style of cloth painted
narratives there’s patachitra there are
cherry
you have lots of them and the crafts
were alive because they were kept alive
by the community
and i think their skills that have been
acquired over centuries
if we just lose them to the industrial
revolution we might just
end up having a whole lot of people who
are just running around for jobs and
can’t create anything themselves
can’t think of anything and just want to
run in a fast-paced life
not take life the way it is meant to be
in a country like india
thank you so much