Abstract
Craft as a domain of study is often either stigmatised or exoticised for various reasons. Most books remain for the purpose of coffee table reading or lack detailed research. Amidst such scenario, Chandan Bose has given us a refreshing account through his work, ‘Perspectives on Work, Home, and Identity from Artisans in Telangana: Conversations Around Craft’. The doctoral thesis of the author on Cheriyal scroll paintings of Telangana is crafted into a book giving us various perspectives of work, household set-up, government intervention and the idea of belongingness through the livelihood of craft making. The author makes it clear that he has attempted to revisit his journey of research and writing through the Introduction of the book thereby making it quite comprehensive. The author gives us a detailed account of the traditional narrative scrolls ranging from the legends associated with it to the process of making the scroll to it becoming viable in the contemporary scenario.
The words ‘Conversations Around Craft’ in the title of the book catches attention. The significance of this gets revealed only as the text unravels itself. The reader gets the opportunity to peel one layer of ‘conversation’ after the other. With a brief understanding of ethnography, the author begins by discussing how his journey began. What he calls, ‘The Seed’, is where he explains the implantation of the idea of this research and his ‘… stumbling upon [narrative traditions] hitherto unknown to me from Telangana,’ (p. 3). In his conversations, the lead protagonist Vaikuntam and his Danalakota studio provide us all that one needs to know about the craft. However there is a constant sense of awareness with which Vaikuntam talks to the author. This makes the conversations dry sometimes despite being informative.
The book is divided into eight chapters including the introduction and concluding chapter. It is in the initial chapters (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3) that the author explains the entire ‘doing’ and ‘telling’ of the craft. Attention has been paid to small nuances like holding of the brush and new colours being prepared for paintings. The ‘becoming’ of the object is important. It is when the author talks about the objects possessing the potential of ‘becoming’ (p. 78) that one is reminded of Appadurai’s (1986), ‘The Social Life of Things’ wherein he emphasised on each object having its own biography. There seems no finality of narrating the art practice and the author reiterates it time and again reminding the reader of the fact that the ethnographic account is constructed out of only specific versions of specific people.
It is through his attempt of tracing the roots of the craft in Chapter four that the author interestingly brings to light the role of history. History is factual and created. It is improvised with regular negotiations of daily life that helps the craft to exist. It is in the fifth chapter where the factors of household and kinship relations are played out beautifully. The history of the craft through the history of Danalakota household shows how deeply the craft is embedded in the fabric of Indian household and familial relations. The distinction and merging of studio and household, structuring of kinship relations, as well as the gendered role of labour is highlighted. The healthy working environment is not simply a physical space of doing the craft. This leads to an intellectual and political transformation of thought and practice. There is thus a transcendent quality of the physical space where the art is carried out by the master craftsman and others. Chapter six brings the reader closer to the practical world where the craft needs to be sold to the market. The artist (here Vaikuntam) deals with the government patronage, state agencies and systematic demand of market in relation to his craft. As far as the satiation of his creative impulse is concerned, that is not necessarily profit yielding. This seems like a dismal but honest fact of the field as stated in other works on craft also (Venkatesan 2009). Even though the artist wants to do something new, finding the ‘right customer’ makes them ‘helpless’. Like other studies done on craft, this too raises the question that most respondents have with the fieldworker, ‘what shall we get out of this?’ (p. 251).
So despite the fact that the traditional art might not have the privilege of assured demand; the craftsman certainly enjoys entrepreneurial discretion. However, with loss of local markets, this is constantly under threat and thus art becomes replication. This loss of local markets could have been elaborated a bit more. It is in his last Chapter that he discusses the state intervention in detail. The state mechanisms of granting ‘Master Craftman Award’ and ‘Geographical Indication Status’ are discussed. The state for the artist exists in the forms that need to be filled for being able to qualify for the award (p. 269). This simple fact by the author is hard-hitting. It brings forth the plight of the craftperson for whom the larger concern of her life has become restricted to the daily living and pride of the craft is being questioned. The state is a significant catalyst for change and consolidation of craft depends on this catalyst.
While the book concludes as an attempt of ‘creating narratives of practitioners …’, Vaikuntam’s voice remains dominant (p. 301). Other accounts like that of ‘Guruji’ make only a brief appearance here and there in the text. This has helped the author in giving a dense perspective on Cheriyal scrolls but the readers are bereft of any polyphonic understanding of the same. Accounts by different artisans might have added to the analysis of craft-work-kinship nexus also. A brief history of Cheriyal scrolls would have helped in introducing the reader to the craft though the legends mentioned by his respondents are definitely interesting. The book lacks what we may call a comparative understanding. The text has mention of Mughal, Rajputana and Deccani paintings but these don’t find much space in detail. It is quite clear that comparisons are not the author’s intentions. However, brief accounts of scroll painting of some regions would have been of support in understanding Cheriyal scrolls.
The limitations of the book do not deter its strong narrative and talks to the reader making it interesting and enjoyable. Various images in the book attract the reader and making her a part of this exploration of Cheriyal scrolls. These also show the closeness of the author to his field. Amidst its monotone account, the book still remains a detailed and extensive ethnographic account of Cheriyal scrolls that brings forth its contemporary relevance. The book thus moves beyond a simple historical understanding of the craft. It cuts across different sociological categories of gender, work, kinship, market and state; to name a few. Categories of state, patronage, governance, caste are crucial in the text that holds craft and craftsmanship at its heart. It thus becomes a work that should garner inter-disciplinary interest including that from sociology, cultural study, anthropology, art history, gender studies.