Article by Mansi Anand

Here is something interesting for all the environment lovers and the citizens of
Bhuj!
Greenbelt in the city of Bhuj developed by recycling sewerage water: a new initiative
The network of rivulets passing through the city
of Bhuj brings life to the lake systems of the
Hamirsar- a lake built over 450 years ago by
Rao Khengarji – I who chose this place as an
oasis in saline and arid kutch. Over several
decades, canals and tunnels were developed to
bring together water from 3 river systems to
recharge the acquifer.
Hunnarshaala Foundation, an Organisation that
promotes low cost eco friendly technologies, in
partnership with the Bhuj Municipality, initiated a pilot
project for greening half a meter stretch of the rivulet
that meets the Hamirsar. The canal falls between the
Mandvi and Mundra road. Through this project, 30,000
lts of sewerage water is taken from the municipality
sump, daily, and is recycled through Decentralized
Waste Water Treatment System (DEWATS). The
treated water is used to landscape the banks through drip
irrigation system.
The project was supported by American India
Foundation (AIF) and Care Today- India Today Group.
With the recent rains in the city the canal has come alive!
Once a garbage dump, the neglected rivulet
has gained life now. The residents of the
nearby apartments- Banker’s Colony & Siddhi
Vinayak Apartment participated in the
cleaning of the canal and plantation of trees,
and have started accessing it as a recreational
space.
Hamirsar lake that
overflowed in 2003
There are more such sites in Bhuj
where similar systems can be
installed to develop the rivulets
as green belts, and create a space
for ecosystem to coexist right in
the middle of the city!

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This is just to register on the search engine!!
Meera

????

The pressure to write something is immense. Let me at least write the obvious. Good effort, you all. And it is raining!

Crafts of Kutch - 1

I thought a bit of historical context of some of the crafts being practiced in Kutch would help those who are a bit curious about Kutch and crafts. Will begin with the weavers, since that is what i have begun my new work in Kutch. Here goes!

CRAFTS OF KUTCH - 1

Weaves

Migrated from Marward in Rajasthan 600 years back , the weavers of Kutch form the Meghwar community in the region. Traditionally coming from the Marwarda & Maheswari community , in the last 40 to 50 years, while the Maheswaris went on to mainstream jobs , the marwarda weavers continue to practice their traditional skills.

These families associated with the various communities of Kutch – the Ahirs , the Rajputs and the Rabaris. The relationship that the weavers had with the communities went deeper than just suppling fabrics. They intermingled with these communities and participated closely in their religious, social and family functions.

Traditionally these weavers wove using the home spun yarn that the rabaris provided. The rabaris are a normadic community whose main occupation was herding sheep and goats. The weavers then wove the fabric and returned it to the rabaris. Each weaver was linked to a group of rabari families and they ensured that the entire production of the weavers would be taken up.

Wild onions were used to starch woolen yarn. These were available between October and November after the monsoons or in June / July when there is dew in the air. The weavers collected these themselves boiled / kept overnight , mash into jelly and starch the warp yarns early morning. Even today the more discriminate weavers use this when weaving wool.

After the 1960’s with the advent of cheaper mill made fabrics and also the access to synthetics which was more durable and maintenance free, local markets dwindled. They had to start looking for markets outside the district. In the 60’s a group of four enterprising weavers came together to look at opportunities outside Kutch at the national markets. Now over 1100 families of active weavers spread over 250 villages’ eek their livelihood through weaving. Selling is done through participation in national exhibitions, cater to tourists from overseas and in the winter months sell woolen and now acrylic shawls to the local community.

Motifs are community specific – working on rustic pit looms, the intricate designs emerge when the weaver hand picks the warp to weave in the weft , keeping the patterns in memory , constantly envisages the final look. A craft that involves intensity of thought, and nimble fingers, sometimes the artisan is not able to weave more than an inch a day!

A take off on the traditional Kutchhi woven shawls have become very popular today in the North & Western parts of India, where urban customers look forward to buying these shawls to keep them warm and cheerful with the bright colours of Kutch.

Among the dyeing weaves are the Kharad weaving done on collapsible, normadic looms – out of 10 families, seven families have shifted to other livelihood options. Mushroo weaving is almost become extinct with local families switching over to synthetic, mill made textiles.

meera pic

The Khamir Crafts Park

An earlier post by Rajiv gave an article on the Khamir Park. This is presently under construction and would be ready by Aug 2007.

It will be an exciting place to engage with the artisans and crafts of Kutch.

Khamir in the Kachchhi language means intrinsic pride, a trait aptly associated with the people of the region.

Under construction on a site 10 km out of the district capital of Bhuj, Kachchh, is the Khamir Crafts Park, the first phase of which will be operational in the first quarter of 2007.
The Khamir Crafts Park is an interpretation and demonstration centre for various crafts, envisaged as a space where artisans, buyers, suppliers, resource groups, agencies meet, interact and draw from each other. The Government of Gujarat (GOG) is funding the infrastructure in part. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is partnering this initiative along with Nehru Foundation for Development (NFD), Ahmedabad and Kachchh Nav Nirman Abhiyan (KNNA), Bhuj.
OBJECTIVES OF KHAMIR

- To promote conservation of environment, natural and cultural heritage, traditional arts & crafts, music, knowledge & practices and sustainable livelihoods by setting up education, training, demonstration, interpretation and other facilities in Kachchh.

- To revitalize, reposition and promote local and traditional crafts of Kachchh and in order to make these a viable and a sustainable source of income for the artisans.

- To bring under a common roof the collective and individual excellence in the areas of art, craft and culture and create conditions to ensure the best manifestation of art and craft.
- To network with organizations and individuals involved in developmental activities in Kachchh and to extend to them services, inputs and expertise of KHAMIR in order to further the overall growth in the region.
- To disseminate information on traditional arts, crafts, knowledge and practices pertaining to Kachchh as well as organise debates and discussions on issues related to Kachchh.

CRAFTS OF KACHCHH : A BACKGROUND NOTE

Crafts constitute the second largest sector in the Indian economy; second only to agriculture. This holds true in Kachchh as well. Over 60,000 families in Kutch eke out a livelihood through practicing traditional craft skills in what is essentially a rural “creative industry.” In this drought prone area, craft is a key means of providing a sustainable income. The total capacities available in Kutch in the various craft sectors are estimated to be in the region of INR 2 billion.

Say “crafts and Kachchh” and most minds make a visual leap to fine embroideries: jewel-toned silken threads picking out intricate patterns in tiny yet complex stitches… on the eye-catching traditional garb of flowing skirts and odhnis, blouses and batuas of the women of Kachchh.

What is less known is that there are at least 18 different forms of embroidery practiced in Kachchh… as well as a host of other crafts, both in the textile and non-textile sectors.

Textile crafts include weaving, ajrakh block printing, tie–dye, batik, mashroo, rogan and kharad (camel hair weaving.)

The First Change...!

The pix above are mostly how Kutch looked like when i first came in 1989.......


AND

This is how Kutch is looking now...ok, not entirely, but we had the most incredible rainfall last year! Normally, every 3rd year in Kutch is a drought year but last year broke that rule.

A recent study done by a visiting Japanese student showed that the amount of rainfall had increased over the last 10 years although the number of days it had rained had decreased.....

What would that mean to the ecology, to the local agricultural patterns?

Sahjeevan is one of the NGOs that's been working with some of these questions since the last 15 years or more.

What a nice beginning Meera

That opening blog of yours is wonderful. Captures what I imagine (I've never been myself) is the special flavour of Kutch.

Here is an article that talks about a place called Khamir Park. I thought you might find it interesting.

Just to demo how nice a picture looks in this place I've included one I just picked up from somewhere.

All the best with this blog folks and folksettes. I hope you can sustain your interest in making it the reference point for Kutch related information and matters. That will serve you well when you start marketing on the net.

Meanwhile, keep it coming. Some hints on how to think up what to write:

1. Go to Google News every day and type Kutch and find stories you'd like to share like I've done above.

2. Seek out other blogs that mention Kutch (you can search at Technorati or use the Google blog search facility)

3. Seek out websites that mention Kutch and write your subjective opinion of those and what they're saying and your opinion of the news items and blogs.

4. Can't think of anything? Bung in a recipe or an anecdote, but on the whole let's try and make the information we ut in meaningful to the average visitor.

All the best! Rajiv

It began in 1989 with my first job. It was in Kutch. It was the setting up of a non-governmental organization looking into the problems of the women artisans of the district. Kutch has its own geo-socio-economic-political configurations of course, but it remains a microcosm of what India has been. What rural India still is and how small town India functions.

I was a city girl with a degree and a cultivated sense of ennui. Taking up the project itself was an attempt at doing something new and different. I stayed on a full 3 years and it was a time that challenged, stimulated, frustrated and made me cry.

Anyone who has learnt to live in a desert has a certain edge, a hardiness that creeps into her/his personality. There is also pride at having survived. And a sense of humour that laughs with the winds. The desert brings with it a sense of vastness; limitless stretches of sand and time. It was this vastness that I glimpsed amongst the innumerable communities living there. There were the Harijans, the Sammas, the Ahirs, the Sodhas, the Jats, the Bhanushalis, the Luanas, the Raisiputras, the Haleputras, a few Pathans even…..the vastness lay in the capacity for variety. Each community had its own dressing, its colours, its ingenious embroidery, its particular food preferences, dialect inflections, mode of dwelling etc. So the Banni Harijans preferred ‘Bhungas’( circular mud huts), while the Paccham Harijans preferred normal rectangular homes with courtyards. It had to do with the quality of the sand in Banni among other factors. Even the dressing of the Harijans in Banni and Paccham differed. It was as if the human spirit was defying the uniformity of the desert….like an impudent child it was sticking out its tongue and saying, “Match that”.

And that impudence was also petty….for the Nodha Muslims thought that the Sammas were characterless and the Sodhas would not deign to mix with other castes, the Harijans were unanimously disliked yet accommodated as they were an integral part in the scheme of things. They embroidered clothes for marriages, ate the carcasses of dead cattle and were skilled in the manufacture of furniture, shoes and other utilities.
“Don’t trust so and so,” we were told to an extent that left us with no choice but to trust only the one warning us. “I understand, but others don’t” was a common and much used refrain. We groped through all these niceties and understood basic norms that had preserved these societies through the ages. In retrospect, a lot of the prejudices were safeguards devised by communities for self-protection. Some may have had historical reasons, some were based on observations of general characteristics but mostly they were inevitable. The need for man to slot, label and judge is as basic as the need for food.

As our work progressed, some age-old customs quietly disappeared. At the womens’ meetings, women from all castes and religions started eating and drinking from the same plates and cups. Muslim women came out of purdah to our meetings in ‘faraway’ Bhuj. Men, who had treated us with suspicion, indulgently joked about the Mahila Mandals.
And slowly people who had thought of themselves only as Kutchchi began considering another identity of being also Gujarati. Their openness to change stemmed from a deep desire for a better life.
For a city born and bred person, I began to get a sense of community for the first time in my life. The total and unquestioning sense of belonging to a larger group, the security that came from eating and dressing alike and sharing the daily business of life without ambiguity brought a sense of release from the individual self.
I lived there among the various communities, sharing their idioms, their stories, their sharp humour, sensing a sort of raw intelligence born out of the experience of life, not books. And there was also the wisdom of ages.
Of course there were also corruptions and self-seeking and quarreling. There were communities more closed and inscrutable than others. But those who lived there had managed to work out their equations with each other. There was never the feeling “why are they different” but rather, “they are like that”. One night sitting with the women in a village courtyard during a “reyan” (a sort of ‘time out’ concept), chatting joking, dialoguing; feeling the calm night above us and the spread of the stars and the desert, I realized that my ennui had gone.

But the individual self is strong even when it has had lofty insights. I left Kutch eventually. I was missing the city. This was in 1993. I moved cities, did business, consultancies and thought I had got on.
It was 2006 and I was back in Kutch. I live there now and I will be…for awhile.
But what I am doing here now has changed. A lot more has changed.
This post is a beginning.