Dastkari Haat Samiti is organising a crafts festival in Pune which will see some of India's finest craftspersons showcase their work. There will be a huge range of products on display - for instance, Madhubani art, wood and textiles, Gond art, bead jewellery, kantha embroidery, handblock prints, and weaving, etc. Dastkari Haat Samiti has been supporting the crafts community of India and creating an artisan-buyer ecosystem for more than 35 years.
Pick up some dhokra items for your home. Dhokra is a 4,000 years old metal casting technique from West Bengal. One of its earliest known lost artefacts is the dancing girl of Mohenjo-daro. Or decorate your walls with pattahitra paintings. Bengali patuas or chitrakars (painter singers) specialise in narrative scroll paintings known as pattachitra. In an earlier time, the patuas wandered from village to village. They would unroll each scroll, frame by frame, and sing folk songs they themselves have composed. For their performance, they were remunerated with rice, vegetables and coins. This art form is created by painting on multiple sheets of commercial poster paper stitched together to form the canvas. Plant-based colours and lamp black are mixed in coconut shells with the sap of bel (wood apple tree), which acts as a binder.
The bazaar will showcase handmade saris in different materials like tussar silk and cotton. Check out the saris with kantha embroidery from West Bengal. Or a Chanderi from Madhya Pradesh. Earlier made only for the royal families, the fabric is now popular with and accessible to everyone. A hand-woven authentic Chanderi fabric is very fine and like a piece of 'woven air'.
Replenish your jewellery wardrobe with silver or dhokra jewellery from Odisha, or handpainted clay and wooden jewellery from bengal and Rajasthan. You can aslo sign up for workshops on crafts, for instance, sanjhi craft from Uttar Pradesh or pattachitra painting of West Bengal. There is lots more.
The Information
Where Dutch Palace, 16, Bund Garden Road, near Residency Club and INOX theatre, Pune-411001. Opp. Residency Club near Railway Station
When November 5 to 13, 11 am to 8 pm
Entry is free
