All The Way To Sandor...

Deciding on a place like Sandor was just out of curiosity. I heard about what that place has in terms of craft and really wanted to know about it in more details. At the same time I didn't wanna miss an opportunity like this to learn how to travel to a new place and know about a place from scratch. So keeping just this in mind I left for Bellary with three other friends of mine.

The first place we went to in Sandor was Kushal Kala Kendra where we saw these women from the Lambaadi dressed in their traditional attire sitting together and working. It was like a color palette in front of my eyes. There we saw this art of hand embroidery using small mirrors which is being carried foward for generations of Lambaadis, who were a nomadic tribe orginally from the north west who finally came and settled in south.





After looking at what happens in the centre we decided to go the the village , Sushilanagar, where these women actually live , thinking that probably find some women who are not working for something commercial like the centre so that we could know a story which is still raw and is untouched by the market. But after going there we realised that all the women who are still practicing this craft , go to the centre and work.

But going to the village helped us know much more about these people. About what the men of the community do and the women who dont practice this art, what their life is like. These women work in the coal mines with ohter men and some of them run grocery stores in the village itself.We interacted with some women and children and then came back to the cere entre to see what else is there to see. It was amazing to see that there was a lot which i probably missed on m first visit. There was too much to gather and a really short time to narrow it down and portray one of the elements in the best way possible. I saw how these embroidered pieces are being used; we heard them sing; we saw them making up songs for the situation; we saw them do their traditional dance; we saw their godown ; we saw how waste patches are being used to make the smaller things , and much more.

On m way back to Bellary I made these broad points or problems or my scope of intervention in my head:

• All these women are still keeping there culture alive by dressing up in the same elaborate way everyday.
• their music is completely interwined with their work and is something which might be a binding factor
• the younger generation is not interested in carring foward this art.
• the centre uses waste pieces to make new things- that means they are open to things like waste reduction and recycling.

• the product range that they have has been pretty much on the same lines where the embroidered cloth is used as a a substitute to a normal cloth in making different items say bags , mobile cases , belts etc.
• the women do not have a scope to experiment and are supposed to do what has been told to them.

As this day was about exploring all possible livelihoods in this space , before reaching bellary we went to another village where they make alchohol at homes. Apparantly when the local alchohol prices hiked , the villagers started making this alchohol. Though the process was interesting we learnt that this was an illegal practice and at the same time the drink was very unhealthy as they mix chemicals to make it stronger.

All in all this entire day of explorating opportunities for movies as well as latert enhancements was pretty fruitfull as it gave a lot to be thought about and a lot that could be narrowed down to something concrete.