Remembering a great guru

On Guru Purnima, when the monsoon moon is at its shimmering best as it swims on the rain-laden clouds, I went into memory recall mode of all the people who have been gurus to an entire generation. As I watched the moon from my room, I remembered fondly the absolute adbhut or amazing memory of a chance meeting I have with someone I consider my guru. My devotion to her is almost like Eklavya, without the thumb cutting part.

This must be sometime in the early or mid ’80s, I don’t recall the exact date, but the incident is vivid in my memory. I was driving on Rajpath, my all-time favourite road in the world in my old Fiat. An old lady — and she looked every inch a lady in a brick red Kanjeevaram silk sari that must have been washed often enough to make it soft and loved worn way above her ankles — flagged me to stop. Her salt and pepper hair had more salt in it than pepper and a tiny bunch of motia flowers were perched on her small jooda like an old friend. Her red kumkum bindi on her parchment like skin shone like a beacon. A khadi jhoola swung from her shoulder. I stopped the car and she said: “Excuse me, can you drop me till All India Radio.” “Of course,” I said.

She opened the door and sat down beside me.

And the first thing she did was to look at my sari which was a rather severe cotton pochampally worn with an ikat blouse. She patted my thigh “Good. You are wearing a handloom sari.” “Ji Kamala ji,” I mumbled. “You know my name ” she said modestly.

Of course I knew who she was. She was the doyenne of crafts and hand-

looms Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya. Like a gauche gushing fan I told her that I loved her book Handicrafts of India which, till date, is one of the most composite tomes of pan Indian crafts and handlooms. I have gone back to the book innumerable times for a quick double-check on a lot of things. “It needs to be updated so much to do,” she said with a sigh, almost to herself.

Her sensitivity towards colours was commendable. It was she who made me aware of how colours work within landscapes, in seasons, in time of the day or night, how they permeate into cloth and a host of very sukshma or refined micro aspects of the handlooms and crafts that I would never have known but for her work. Reading about them also made me look out for them when I travelled across the country much later. Kamaladevi not only documented the crafts and handlooms, but also some aspects of performing arts like leather puppets from all the four states. Unfortunately, many of those arts have even gone into oblivion since the book was written, but of that another time.

Her work for the artisans is unparalleled.

She was multi-talented, a social reformer, a freedom fighter, and is most remembered for her contribution to the Independence movement, for being the driving force behind the renaissance of Indian handicrafts, handlooms and theatre in Independent India; and for uplift of the socio-economic standard of Indian women by pioneering the co-operative movement.

In fact, several cultural institutions in India today exist because of her vision, including the National School of Drama, Sangeet Natak Akademi, the Central Cottage Industries Emporium, and the Crafts Council of India. She stressed on the significance that handicrafts and co-operative grassroots movements play in the social and economic upliftment of the Indian people. To this end she withstood great opposition both before and after Independence from the power centres. She was awarded the Padma Vibhushan and was a fellow of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, its highest award.

In a way, all of us are both gurus and shishyas at the same time. Like true repositories, we are learning as well as passing on to the next generation. When my eight-year-old niece asks me to wear a sari that she likes or wear flowers in my hair, I feel so absolved that maybe I have lit a tiny lamp in her memory bank that she will recall at some point when she is older and perhaps continue sporting handlooms.

If all of us are able to walk a few steps on the path Kamaladevi showed, we have the power to change thousands of lives. There are 49 million craftspersons and handloom weavers in the country. If all of us bought one handloom sari every year or one piece of craft, it would keep many of their fires burning all the year round. Most of you will be surprised to know that it needs a handloom worker to move his hands and legs in tandem for over 19,000 times to weave a single simple sari.

The simplest of saris take three to four days to weave and the more elaborate ones could take nearly four to five months to complete. So let us not grudge them their wages. It is people like us who walk into expensive stores and pay printed prices without questioning if it is value for money or not, but when we see a poor artisan, all our bargaining skills come to the fore.

All too soon it was time for Kamaladevi to disembark. “Handloom pehenna. You will support the artisans,” she said as she got off. It is my promise to her and if I can keep the light glowing in some of you, I feel I would have paid my guru dakshina to her.

This piece is an offering of love and affection to one of the greatest gurus of our generation with the earnest hope that I am a worthy shishya.

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com