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100th Gram Shree Mela
Faiz Ahmed
Pottery, hand-woven clothes, hand crafted
jewellery, cane furniture, carved stone products... The 100th Gram
Shree Mela was a veritable feast for the eyes as artisans from all
over the country came together at Dilli Haat to display their wares.
The 10-day mela was inaugurated on August 22 by Dr N.C.Saxena,
Secretary, Rural Development. The event was organised by DA along
with
TARA
for the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural
Technology (CAPART).
For the mela, Dilli Haat was converted into a
village. Hut like structures were designed by Kalyan Gupta where the
craftspersons had their stalls. A total of 105 organisations came
from all corners of the country to explore the market in
Delhi
and sell their artefacts.
Buyers made a beeline for the objets d’art. Among
the goods that were in great demand were carved marble lamp shades
and cane furniture. “I sold out most of our artefacts on the second
day itself,” enthused Partho, a craftsperson who came from a remote
corner of
Assam with decorative items of cane. “We always have good
expectations of sale, after all Delhi is our capital and Delhiites
are craft lovers. But our main motive is to explore the Delhi market
for regular supply and fortunately I’ve got a good dealer,” he
added. A representative of SWATCH maintained that his organisation
had very innovative decorative items made of various stones.
On the night of August 31, the light of the
urban village market started dimming but the faces of exhibitors
revealed satisfaction. After all they had achieved an aggregate
sales figure of Rs 15 lakh and interacted directly with buyers. Said
an enthusiastic producer of handwoven saris and clothes from
Manipur: “People give me honour by purchasing my products. Thank God
people in
Delhi are good enough to honour hand crafted products.”
All those who came to the mela, be it Maneka
Gandhi , Jyotinder Jain or O.P Jain found something to take home
as a souvenir of the Gram Shree centenary celebrations.
Melas like Gram Shree have become a good means of
popularising rural crafts. CAPART with a few other organisations
have taken to this form of marketing in a big way.
Gram Shree Mela was born in
Bhopal in 1983. In 14 years, Gram Shree Mela reached its
century. Delhi, therefore, seemed the best venue to celebrate the
occasion.
Workshops
A mere one time sale is not enough for
craftspersons. Their crafts provide them a livelihood and for a
sustainable livelihood it is necessary that there should be a
consistent demand for their products.
The organisers of the mela felt that workshops
are the best device for them to interact with each other to find out
hurdles in demand and supply and come up with solutions to ease
bottlenecks. Since the Gram Shree Mela is one of the venues to get
rural producers under a single roof, DA/TARA took the opportunity to
organise workshops for them.
Two workshops were organised in the 10 days of
the mela under the guidance of experts in the field of rural
marketing, namely Jaya Jetley and Pradeep Kashyap. Most of the
participants of the mela joined the workshops and took the benefits
of expert suggestions.
Jaya Jetley felt that rural producers should adapt their wares to
changing trends in demand. For this the best method is to interact
with buyers. She also suggested that buyer’s preferences will
indicate the fashion and should, therefore, be borne in mind.
Kashyap said that rural people should reap the benefits of
interaction at such melas. Collective thoughts, he felt, always give
good solutions to any problems.
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