Wonderful world of Kantha

On my first visit to the eastern state of West Bengal, I had the opportunity to visit an artisan that lived in the small town of Bolpur. Bolpur is popular for its vicinity to Shantiniketan, which is the hometown of Rabindranth Tagore, and Kantha embroidery.

"Kantha" means story telling and is supposed to have originated in Dhaka, Bangladesh when a young woman pining for her love decided to express her story on a piece of cloth. In the villages of Bengal, the women stitch together old clothes and even use the same thread from the clothes to create beautiful blankets and bed sheets. In more modern times, the typical running stitch has been used to create a variety of motifs on silk, wool and even cotton. I had the opportunity to spend a few days with Salma Khatun, who runs a large network of women that create kantha.

Salma is the daughter of national award winner Alima Khatun, who learnt the art from her mother at the age of 7. She now runs an operation of 300 artisan women who provide neat beautiful embroidery. There are usually 10 artisans that come to her house to do the work while the rest of the women are scattered all over the villages in the area. I had the opportunity to go to a couple of villages called Bhatiya and Papuri where almost all the houses had women working on Kantha in midst of very humble surroundings. All the designs and color combinations are still done by Salma herself. She prints the design on the cloth by using silver color and kerosene and then distributes to various artisans based on their skill level. Her charisma, strength and talent has definitely given Kantha some fame locally but she is still not able to market her art outside of India. There is also the issue of more economically advanced villages not willing to propagate this art as much. Amidst all these difficulties, the art of Kantha is still living on with the help of these strong women artisans.

Attached are some pics and video of the trip and of the beautiful, humble world of Kantha.