Issue August 15 - 31, 2003

Let us give ourselves due credit

She came in almost direct from Calcutta. She had been sent by a friend who planned to exhibit her saris, and hoped I would like them enough to give her some publicity.

She put the largish plastic packet she carried on the sofa in my room, and started to take out the saris from within it. Sari after sari, an endless line, reeling miraculously out of a bag of normal, nondescript dimensions.

But that was not the only magic. As she opened each garment out and displayed the handiwork, the dexterity of the needlework had me enchanted. ‘Kantha’-worked saris are pretty common, but what I was looking at was seriously high-quality stuff.

The woman seemed oblivious to the impact the saris had on me. She kept up a barrage of small talk, telling me that she was a small entrepreneur, that she worked with a handful of very poor women who had only their needlework to sustain them, and it was her way of doing some ‘social work’ after Sai Baba had appeared to her in a dream while she was visiting Shirdi and told her to do something for society.

I tried to hush her by telling her that her work was really lovely, and that the craftsmanship was exquisite, as were her combinations of colour and design, but she prattled on.

Finally, I sat back and listened. In her self-abasement, I could hear the voice of the typical Indian woman. Who despite everything she does, tells the world she does nothing at all. I could in fact, hear echoes of myself.

I listened. These were words and phrases I had used myself. And which I had heard used around me in a variety of ways. Like I am only trying, I know it’s not good enough, but please..., I wish I could be an expert...

If this was an educated woman talking the language of self-effacement, what would the women who actually worked out the designs have to say? They, as she had told me, were unlettered, and “so poor, you won’t believe it till you see them”.

They would undoubtedly think that anyone who gives them a bit of notice was a gift from heaven, they would think it their duty to sit and toil with nimble hands and straining eyes over metres of silk, oblivious of the magic their hands were creating, and aware only of their own smallness as human beings.

Gentle probing revealed to me that this woman at least realised that her social work included making her craftswomen feel wanted and paying them in proportion to their contribution, but I cannot but feel that India is full of talented men and women who practise traditional crafts which make those who know their value rich, while keeping the craftsmen and artists themselves below subsistence level.

The woman in front of me, was only a step above... her lack of faith in herself was part of the same ethos that belittled what was ethnic and traditional and made much of only that which could be seen as corporate expression.

Finally, as she fanned out her tenth or eleventh creation, I lost my cool. I told her that though I admired her work, I would not even consider it seriously, unless she herself did so. She had with her a heritage of craft exposed in mind blowing ways, and her enterprise had not only put it together but brought her all the way to Mumbai alone and for the first time... if she did not believe in herself and her work, who would?

I think the message got through. She was quiet for a while. Then, smiling, she pulled herself up, and said, as she opened out the last sari, ‘Didi, here is a lovely piece. I think you will like it.’ I did.

I believe that when finally, she left my cabin, she walked just that bit taller.

And believe me, so did I, that day!

The Editor