DYING ART OF PAPIERMACHIE

Dwindling economic utility of the art is forcing artisans in Kashmir villages to give up on it, reports Samreena Nazir

- Samreena Nazir

On a snowy afternoon of January, facing towards the only window of the room, surrounded with broken cups holding variety of colors, Fayaz Ahmad Jan, 45 ,is keenly moving brushes over an elephant made of paper pulp. Spending most of his time in a room where every item around is decorated with alluring colors, his puffy eyes with dark circles reflect his dedication towards the art of Papermachie. He has been practicing the art since 30 years.

“This art was passed down from our ancestors to us, who had learned it from, a famous papermachie artist, Mohammad Yousuf Naqash, of Alamgir bazaar Srinagar,” says Jan of Shahoo village in Kulgam.

Before nineties, every individual in Jan’s locality was associated with paper-machie and this craft was the only source of income for the villagers. Jan as a kid would be attracted towards colors, he used to observe his uncle’s fingers while decorating the items with different colors and designs.

Soon Jan earned the mastery over the art, left his school and joined the village’s common workshop. “I spent my childhood surrounded by colors, artists and papermachie items. Men from the village would do papermachie while women used to support them by making a paste of paper for making a crude shape of a thing which was later decorated by the artists,” says Jan.