Chennai: “Every day, I saw banana plants being discarded after the fruit was harvested and felt there had to be a better way to utilise them,” says Sudhakaran Pandian. With a strong belief that nothing in nature should go to waste, Sudhakaran founded the TASS banana fibre handicraft products, a start-up based in Sankarankovil, Tenkasi district.Sudhakaran is among artisans from across India showcasing their wares at Karigar Bazaar, being held in Chennai for the first time at Mantra Gardens, Nandanam. “From banana fibre, we create handcrafted products, handmade paper, and decorative items. We also convert remaining biomass into organic fertilisers. The fruit is sold fresh, processed into powder, and made into banana chips.” They have also trained and provided employment to around 30 artisans, most of them being women from rural communities who had little to no experience in handicrafts.Among the master craftspeople at Karigar Bazaar, is Ishwar Singh Prajapati is a 15th-generation terracotta artisan from Ramgarh in Rajasthan’s Alwar district and one of the last practitioners of rare Kagzi pottery. “The unique terracotta tradition of Alwar was once famous for its remarkably light, paper-thin clay vessels. As far as we know, ours is the only family still practising and preserving this craft,” says Ishwar. The tradition had nearly vanished by the late 1990s, until his elder brother, national award-winning artisan Om Prakash Prajapati, found historical references and surviving pieces in the Alwar museum. “We realised that the lightweight vessels our family had always made were part of a rare craft,” says Ishwar. In Kagzi pottery, the clay has to be shaped into extremely thin walls on the wheel, and even the slightest mistake can ruin the piece.In another corner, Islam Ahmed, a seventh-generation lac bangle artisan from Jaipur and a national awardee, shapes molten lac into multicoloured bangles using traditional tools, preserving a 300-year-old family craft now threatened by plastic and chemically manufactured substitutes. Pure lac is a natural resin used to create handcrafted lac bangles in Rajasthan, which hold deep cultural and spiritual significance.Other exceptional artisans at the exhibition include Tassawur Bhai of Aghaz women bead work, who create intricate traditional pieces of art from thousands of beads, creating a sustainable livelihood for 500 women at Pilkhuwa, Uttar Pradesh; and Nirupama Jena, a craftswoman who transforms sabai grass, a resilient natural fibre found in Balasore, Odisha, into beautiful objects.
