Taking Responsibility to Make a Change
Written on August 31st, 2009 by AnuragLife has changed – the climate change, the environment issues, the rapidly increasing pollution every thing points towards changing the way we live. But is this pointer to everyone – maybe not – the people in more remote areas aren’t touched by the city life – the way of living there is still as simple as it used to be. We all did migrate in some decade for a need to make a ‘ better living’.
What happened to better living as it evolved to living in such polluted times. Should we go back– we cannot – we don’t know how to but at least lets encourage living the way people have been since centuries – recycling – creating – innovating – living simply….
In search of Navalgund durries
Located in Dharwad District of Karnataka, Navalgund village is popular for its durrees (also known as Jamkhans) that are highly patterned. Navalagunda Jain Temple, a famous Jain heritage center, is another prime attraction of the place.
We sped into the dusty bylanes of Dharwad and reached the small village of Navalgund by late noon. Most homes had the vertical looms, that were lying empty, built in the front courtyard of their small houses. The home we went to a vibrant durrie was being woven and was near finishing.
The durry was woven using vibrant recycled yarns purchased from the nearby industrial city of Hubli. The waste yarn was easily available and very cheap.
With the popular temple in the village and Hubli being a major Industrial town we learnt that the art of weaving the Navalgund durries was dying slowly. There were only 12 families still weaving this durry. Most of the families involved had found lucrative business by selling flowers. Durries were only made to order.
We bought this durry which was ceremoniously cut off the loom and handed over to us. Armed with my new durry and determined to revive the navalgund durry one day I left for the Jesuit hostel I was staying in.
We were only an hour away from our destination when out dilapidated, overworked jeep broke down. It was already twilight and there were no villages in sight – we took a lift from the first vehicle that passed us – a milk van!
The small village too had several power looms weaving beautiful ilkal sarees. There was a loom in every corner – sarees being woven for mostly local retail.
The jeep was back soon (about a couple of hours after seeing the looms we spent waiting in front of the local akhada!)
We were approaching our centre (about 20 km. we were stranded again – our jeep just gave up) Under the moonless sky with ancient tree looming in on us it wasn’t the best nights to be stranded out in the wild.
A truck finally stopped and took us closer to our destination. I was staying in one of the Jesuit hostels was relived to be back now closer to midnight thanking that we were still alive to narrate our story.
Having had the opportunity to go to various remote areas in India I feel fortunate to have living history around to see and understand the traditional systems. Unfortunately some traditions have already become stories only found in history books While some like the Navalgund durries would soon be a thing of the past unless we do something about it.
Why don’t we make it our responsibility to take areas like these and make a small change that would effect lives of many and sustain a culture that is decades old. An art of living we can all believe in!
