Kottans for posterity
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COMMENTS 
Tamil Nadu's almost-extinct traditional basket-weaving craft survives and thrives again
In southern Tamil Nadu, 80 km from the temple towns of Madurai and Tiruchinapalli, lies a cluster of non-agrarian villages. This is Chettinad, once home to the legendary business community of Chettiars. Originally overseas traders, the Chettiars migrated in post-Independence India to urban industrialised markets within the state and elsewhere. They left behind largely arid land, empty mansions, numerous temples and a rich tradition in the crafts they had once nurtured. Today, Chettinad is a study in the challenges faced by India's craftspeople.
It is in villages like these that ageing women walk dusty roads in the searing midday heat selling palm-leaf bags for Rs 10. These bags are poor imitations of the Western woman's handbag -- a sign of the struggle to find contemporary markets for a traditional craft.
Kottan -weaving is unique to the area referred to as Chettinad. Kottans were originally baskets used as packaging and as containers for gifts and offerings during family rituals. Weaving colourful hand-dyed kottan s , sometimes embellished with beads and crochet, was a leisure craft for the women of Chettinad. It is not so anymore. Till recently kottans were almost extinct.
The process of making a kottan is time-consuming. To braid the baskets, leaves have to be harvested from the palmyra tree. Each metre-wide leaf spreads out like a fan and has to be dried, preferably in summer, for five to six days. It is then laboriously cut with a knife into even strips. (The M RM Rm Cultural Foundation has only recently developed an adjustable mechanised blade that helps splice the palm leaves into the required sizes.) The leaves are then hand-dyed in batches in the backyards of homes, then hung out to dry. Sometimes, entire families are engaged in the preparatory work.
Says B Nirmala of Sravayal village near Pillayarupatti: " Kottan s are woven in two ways: entirely by hand, or by using the feet as well. For a finer, more impeccable, finish and a flat base we have to use the second method, gripping the base of the basket with our feet and building it from that. We moisten the kurutthu (harvested palm leaf) and wet our hands as we work, to prevent breakage from brittleness. We cannot use the fan even if the weather is hot. In the height of summer, we have to stop work at midday as the heat makes the palm leaves brittle. We can't dye the palm leaves in the rainy season since they tend to change colour and absorb dyes differently. It takes four to five hours to finish one medium-sized basket (six cubic inches). It is very difficult to meet the exacting standards set by city people. Even a small mistake can lead to rejection. We have learnt it all well. But it is not easy. Hands ache, backs ache and eyes pain after some time. We get Rs 25 for each basket we make. Some of us are faster and some not so fast. But at the end of the month, we make at least Rs 1,000. In my family, I can contribute to my children's education and medicine, if need be. It means a great deal. People in my village look at me with respect. I have purchased a pressure cooker with my own money."
Nirmala is now the training head of a group of women being helped by the M RM Rm Cultural Foundation, which has been instrumental in reviving this almost-forgotten craft. The foundation helps younger women learn the craft from their older achi s (elder sisters/generic term of respect for senior Chettiar women) whose legendary acumen is in danger of dying with them, as kottan -making like all oral traditions is taught by one generation to the next. The foundation continues to play a critical role in sourcing raw material, finding urban markets and arranging for the transport of raw material and finished products. It has also documented the entire process of kottan -making for posterity.
The challenge in finding a market for traditional crafts lies not only in the place of origin and the ultimate destination but in the journey that has to be undertaken to cover the distance between these two points. On the one hand, the very nature of traditional handicrafts makes quality control difficult. The raw material itself is subject to the vagaries of nature, availability is subject to seasonal fluctuations and the hands that work on the craft come with varying degrees of skill. It is this uniqueness, which cannot be replicated by any machine or mechanised process, which lends handmade products their indefinable charm. An asset no doubt, but also a challenge in price-driven, standardised market economies.
At the marketing end, consumers have little appreciation of the rural realities, much less of the four painstaking hours (five, if the processing of raw materials is included) of hand work involved in making one medium-sized kottan . For this, the woman who makes the kottan gets Rs 25 by way of wages. A good-quality kurutthu costs an average of Rs 5.50, depending on the season and government regulations on toddy-tapping (if the climbers are harvesting toddy from the trees anyway, they are willing to work for less. Last year, the government banned toddy-tapping and the price of palm leaves shot up). It costs a minimum of Rs 10 to transport each finished kottan to Chennai city, the main market, since lorries charge according to the space occupied, not weight (which is negligible). Add to this the inventory carrying cost (done away with if kottan s are made-to-order, but that denies access to retailing potential). Finally, with a barely-there margin/mark-up, the retail price is tagged in the region of Rs 50.
This particular route from maker to market has been undertaken by a non-profit organisation. If the cost of middlemen is factored in, will the village women be able to make their business sustainable?
That's the question Visalakshi Ramaswamy, founder of the M RM Rm Cultural Foundation, has been trying to answer. She says: "The issue of eliminating middlemen comes up at every seminar and workshop that addresses the issue of reviving traditional crafts. It is a difficult question. To what extent can the process of getting a rural product to an urban market be undertaken by the craftspeople themselves? Are they supposed to engage in the making of their products, or carry it on their heads to try and sell it, which leaves them with little time for production? In any case, self-selling will only give them access to their limited, local market. The aim of any support system, like ours, should ultimately be to revert control over the entire process to the craftspeople themselves. We have made significant inroads as far as procurement of raw material and quality control is concerned. But marketing is still a challenge to be surmounted. There is no point being sensitive, emotional or sorry about this reality. Eventually, we are sought after because we offer something nobody else does."
Ramaswamy adds that the women fix the prices and decide which designs they wish to work on. "Sometimes, they give up smaller objects which are more difficult to make and sell -- the latter because, for their size, the customer feels they are not worth the price. Again, if we wish to participate in exhibitions and put up stalls in other cities, we have to factor in the additional expense of rental, travel and stay. It is important that craftspeople too understand this reality. They are highly resourceful. I will not say that an urban market is a handicap for them. As producers of quality crafts, they can build a supply-driven customer base over time."
Says Muthulakshmi, who has been trained by the foundation and is now part of the Keelaypatti group: "We are able to work better and get more orders as a group. If there is an order pending we even work at night to meet the time of delivery. We are professional, we have learnt well and we are honing our talents."
Lower-value crafts are generally produced better in groups, as opposed to high-value catalogues or work that requires a lot of workmanship. Retailing risks and a lack of transparency among some NGOs are other obstacles that need to be overcome.
Muthulakshmi adds: "We never imagined it would be possible to make a living by making kottan s . Now that confidence is there."
(Lalitha Sridhar is a Chennai-based freelance journalist)
InfoChange News & Features, March 2004