Chamarel – Seven Coloured Earth

My vacation at Mauritius an year back was full exciting water sports, beautiful scenic beauty and great exposure to a different culture.

Out of the seven days, our first day visit included site seeing at Chamarel. While I was curious about the tag seven colors of earth, I was also wondering at my own wild imagination of it. Will it be patches of colors on earth, shades of rainbow? Or will it be some human colored ground?

And my eyes found answers with one glimpse at Chamarel. There were not seven colors though… there were more!! Multiple shades of pinks and purples, reds and yellows… neither rock nor sand. Neither too soft nor hard… just good enough to remain as it is after years full of winds, rains and storms. It was indeed beautiful.

How has it survived the climatic conditions, how in the first place is the sand colorful… debates amongst geologist continue but it’s believed that mineral rich volcanic ash is the root cause of breath taking multi-colored lunatic landscape.

Scientific descriptions were indeed interesting but, more interesting were the soothing effects this view was having on the eyes. The colors were going up and down and up again in layers of sand. Touching or walking on it was not allowed, for the best I think. Because the first desire I had after looking at the view was to dig my hand into the soft sandy hill.

Huge tortoises were another attraction for the tourists. All four of them were cuddled up together and were busy chewing leaves.

Visit to Chamarel told me that apart from the chameleon there are other entities too which are capable of changing color. It’s a memorable place with mystic colorful beauty.

Sujni: Artistic Autobiography

The other day, while surfing through channels, an interesting documentary caught me.

It was about Sujni, the embroidery sarees made by rural women of Muzaffarpur depicting their own life. Here the own life refers to their routine activities and also special incidences/occasions like festival of colors.

I liked the art undoubtedly, but more then that I was deeply touched by the women, their situation, and above all an aged, smart and sensitive educated lady who encouraged and trained these women.

The reporter was talking to different workers asking about their personal life, why they are working, the difficulties they’ve faced etc.

“We don’t have money, and we have to work. Money is very important.”
“I’ve four children. (then she corrected herself and said, I’ve three children and husband) My husband does not earn and we used to grow wheat. But the money we got by it was not enough and I came here to earn money through Sujni.” (She was standing in front of a house which was being repaired) “This house was leaking all over, and only because of earnings I make via Sujni, I’ve been able to get it repaired.”

There was a middle aged woman who has taken up the responsibility of marketing.

“When we started this work, Didi (used for elder sister, or an elder woman; here for their selfless trainer) told us that one of you has to take up marketing, else you won’t get work. Although we told her we’ll come to Delhi, and we sat in the train, but neither did I have experience of sitting in a train, nor did I know how to use a telephone. Didi had told me, she’ll come to pick me at station, but she didn’t for a very long time. When she come she said, you have to build up the courage to travel and manage alone.”

“In our village, men don’t work. If a man would go to a shop and will borrow something, no one would lend him but if a woman would go, people would. The reason is, women will be able to return the money as soon as she would get the payment for Sujni, but men would just drink and play cards, gamble and finish the money. We have depicted even this, men playing cards in Sujni.”

“Men would not work, just play cards and drink, and will come home and ask for food from women. Where will she get it from? And then people will criticize women for working and earning money. We are earning from our art, what is wrong in this?”

A reporter asked a young girl, ‘Do you like doing this or you wanted to do something else?’

“I wanted to study further. But there is no facility for continuing with higher studies in the village. Guys and go out and study in towns but girls can’t. For girls, there would be problems of accommodation etc. So I go to learn drawing (Sujni is drawn on sarees first, then embroiled) and once I’ll learn, I’ll be able to earn more.”

“I’m happy that I’m able to afford the education of my daughter in the city. It’s difficult to stay without her, but I don’t express my feelings to her. She cries but I don’t because that will make her cry even more.”
‘Will she work after her education?’
“Yes, she will definitely work…”
‘What if her husband doesn’t allow her to after marriage?’
“I’ll get her married into her family who will for sure allow her to work. I don’t want her to suffer the way I’ve done…”

On a brighter side, there is one girl who is selected to study fashion design in NIFD. She is learning English and computers too, and has already gone to the US to an exhibition. She was asked, ‘what would you like to depict via Sujni’? She said, “I would like to depict that one should always break the hurdles of the path and never stop because of problems”

It left me thinking about these women struggling for survival of their families in male dominated society. A social structure, in which all a male does is dominate. Indian men in general dominate as the head of the family, working hard for the bread and butter of everyone in their house. But how strange would a dominating chauvinist look that plays cards, gambles to finish off the difficultly made savings of his wife/mother.

In a later discussion about the same, I told my father I’m really fascinated by the lady who helped and still is helping these women to recognize their own potential. She teaches them the technique of drawing, helping them to differentiate what is their specialty on which they should emphasize. But above all, she is making them independent. She has made sure, they do all these stuffs themselves; right from talking to people, marketing and selling and bringing more work.

One of the women who have taken up marketing said, “I really like Delhi. I saw places here which I never even dreamed of, met all kinds of people. And now, whenever we come, we get associated with 3 or 4 more boutiques.”

The elegant old lady told the reporter, “Initially it was a problem training them. It took them time to rise up to the required level of understanding, but now things are better.”

My father said, “she is special, perhaps god makes such people special and send them”, and I wondered, is that really so? Isn’t she just one of us, who has realized a few things all of us should? Can’t we at least pay small contributions to help?

So next time you are looking for something special for yourself, or a special gift for a loved one, remember Sujni. I’m definitely going to get one very soon.