Papermaking Where There is No Papermaking Tradition - (CUSAT ...

Papermaking Where There is
No Papermaking Tradition:
Two Months in South India
dorothy field
Padma Nambisan (left) and her CUSAT students experiment
with various approaches to papermaking with local fibers. All
photos by and courtesy of the author, 2009.
Although ‐ papermaking was an important craft in North India, South India
lacks a tradition of handmade paper. 1 Its ancient culture was traditionally
Hindu and, until recently, primarily oral. When transcribed, Hindu scriptures
and Ayurvedic teachings were scratched onto treated palm leaves and
gathered into unbound books.
In the winter of 2009, I spent two months in South India, mostly in
Kerala. During my first week, I stayed with Dr. Padma Nambisan, a professor
of biotechnology who has been developing handmade papers with
local fibers at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT). Nambisan
taught herself to make paper in the years she stayed home with her
infant son, experimenting broadly with the abundant local fibers. When
she returned to teaching, she started to research new applications for these
papers. Currently she has four female PhD students working with her, applying
a scientific approach to the challenge of creating financially viable
alternative papers from local fibers that would otherwise go to waste.
I spent a few days with Nambisan and her students at CUSAT. They are
bright and hardworking, but the traditional Indian approach to education
has made them more obedient than innovative. Despite Kerala’s tradition of
strong women, they seemed to be holding themselves back. Hoping to shift
their over-reverence for paper to a more engaged immersion, I scrounged
around Nambisan’s office for a wide variety of papers, both commercial and
handmade. Appealing to the intelligence of their senses which is so central
to Indian culture, I asked the students to crumple, rip, and fold them, and
to burnish, rattle, and subject them to any other “abuse” they could think of.
Looks of horror passed over their faces. Then they got into it.
The next day we experimented with beating various fibers, particularly
banana leaf, by hand and in a blender, and combining them in different percentages.
I encouraged them to follow their imaginations and to have fun.
My orientation as artist, rather than scientist, may have given them permission
to experiment without preconceived scientific theses. I told them about
a ceramics teacher who divided his class in two, one half to be marked solely
on the quality of their pots, the other judged by weight. At semester’s end,
winter 2010 • 35

Pradeep, in charge of the papermaking workshop, trims a banana stalk in
preparation for cooking it in lye.
Pradeep and Bindhu form sheets on a large deckle box.
the quality group had a few self-conscious pots; the quantity group
had boxes of pots, some poorly made and awkward, others lively,
imaginative, ingenious, even beautiful. 2 I hoped that by loosening
them up and allowing them to make leaps and mistakes, they
would design new and unusual papers.
I continued south to Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, and
then to the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) Rural
Centre, 16 kilometers outside the city. An Indian friend told me
about the Rural Centre, a thoughtfully designed brick complex
where poor women—battered, abandoned, widowed, or the sole
support of their families—are hired to do the center’s work. My
friend had shown me a few of their paper products: file folders,
blank books, and soap wrappers, made from chemically dyed recycled
paper and cotton waste. The paper was fairly substantial,
adequate but generic, and similar to other papers being made in
India today. In no way did it reflect the botanical richness of Kerala
or the lives of the women who made it. I offered to volunteer with
them to see whether we could make their paper more reflective of
its origins.
The Rural Centre is a small paradise of mango, cashew, papaya,
and coconut trees. Committed to environmental sustainability,
SEWA is experimenting with small-scale farming, beekeeping,
bio-diesel, and a new composting toilet. Several staff members
support the Ayurvedic doctor whose office is there, preparing
remedies, cooking, and housekeeping for his patients, both Indian
and foreign.
Their papermaking began years ago when a Belgian woman
taught a small group of women in a poor, remote area. They
started with a few small screens and gradually expanded to their
current setup. The center hired a man to make them a Hollander.
He built a full-sized industrial beater with a greater capacity
than required. It was difficult to adjust and wasted quantities of
precious water. Their one large deckle box was very rusty. Since
their instruction had been cursory, they routinely dripped water
on newly formed sheets. Having no concept of the integrity of
the deckle edge, they hung the paper to dry with the edges ripped
and distorted. That did not matter much since they trimmed their
sheets. The power supply to the Hollander and the calendering
press was reliably unreliable. Their market was largely notebooks
and other items for conferences hosted at the Rural Centre. One
or two young women and a young man, Pradeep, the only male
employee, were assigned to the paper mill on a regular basis. Four
other women helped as needed. Pradeep was responsible for the
Hollander, deckle box, screw press, guillotine, and calendering
press as well as any other mechanical or technical tasks around
the center.
During my first few days there, we gathered banana leaves and
stems, pineapple leaves, pandanus, and other local fibers; cooked
them in lye; hand beat them; and formed them on small screens
into thin sheets using okra as a formation aid and combining different
fibers in varying percentages. These crisp, undyed papers
in natural colors, ranging from off-white through yellows, greens,
and tans, were a radical departure from their usual output. We
also combined local fibers with their regular recycled paper and
cotton to make large sheets with more texture and visual interest.
We added ferns and leaves, and experimented with blind embossing
using large, deeply veined dry leaves. Though not startling by
world standards, the results were very different from the handmade
paper usually available in India.
The Centre’s kitchen was equipped with propane burners, but
to cook paper fibers we used traditional clay stoves under a tin roof.
Fuel was the abundant supply of dry coconut leaves and ribs that
fell from the Centre’s trees. Compared to their usual routine of
loading the Hollander and flicking the switch, staff initially found
36 • hand papermaking

Bindhu collects pineapple leaves for papermaking fiber.
An ikat weaver at Pochampalli in Andra Pradesh, central India. Note the white
marks around the terracotta pit where he sits at his loom. These marks indicate
cloth and thread’s sacred place in Indian culture, a status rarely granted paper.
cooking and hand beating fiber laborious and time-consuming.
Papermaking at the Rural Centre was a low priority compared
to almost everything else. The women worked at SEWA because
they needed a job, not out of interest in handmade paper and local
fibers. They had not seen other handmade papers so they had
nothing to compare theirs to. Despite the center’s commitment to
sustainability, the women sloshed water wildly as they rinsed the
cooked fiber. They were resistant to even the most rudimentary
system of measuring alkali, preferring to dump in lye in great random
quantities. I carried pH strips in my pocket, testing the cook
water and the rinsed fiber over and over. Gradually, they took an
interest in a simple measuring system and obtaining pH papers.
After we had made several batches of paper, I led them through
the same exercise I had done with Nambisan’s PhD students—
rumpling, crumpling, folding, tearing, and burnishing a variety
of papers. I introduced the idea of evaluating their paper in terms
of how well it fulfilled the requirements of its intended use. Staff
began asking questions and proposing experiments of their own.
We talked about designing cards that reflected cultural traditions
of Kerala. The women became conscious of not wasting fiber that
had taken so long to prepare. I helped them to make journals with
samples of the papers we had made and notes on our processes,
a reference for them, though they did it mostly to humor me. We
persisted. On the road up to the Rural Centre a military camp displays
a large billboard: BASH ON REGARDLESS. I laughed the
first time I saw it, then took it as my motto.
I left the women on their own for a few days to take a short
vacation north of Kerala. Before I left, I assigned some papermaking
experiments. On my return, the staff proudly showed me their
work. Unfortunately, during my final week, they received a large
order for blank conference books made with their usual paper, so
we could not pursue the new papers further. I left unsure whether
they would continue the work we had begun. Six months later, I
was thrilled to receive a stack of large sheets of the new papers that
they had made after I left.
Beyond refining South India’s handmade paper, the next challenge
is market creation. In centuries past, India’s royal families
were wealthy and discriminating patrons of the regions’ finest
crafts. With the end of royal states, some traditions have died for
want of patronage. Deep appreciation of the remaining arts is now
in the hands of a tiny group of artists, curators, and collectors who
know and appreciate fine crafts, but generally lack the wealth to
keep them going. SEWA’s unfamiliarity with the possibilities of
handmade paper is parallel to that of most Indians today. For years,
India’s best contemporary handmade paper has been made in two
centers: the Sri Aurobindo Ashram’s paper mill in Pondicherry,
south of Chennai (formerly Madras); and in Sanganer, an old papermaking
village in Rajasthan. I have heard that some traditional
paper is still being made in Sanganer. Apart from that possibility, I
am unaware of any Indian papermakers using traditional materials
or technology, or making burnished plant papers for miniature
painting, though there would be some market for it. Today’s miniature
artists paint on the backs of fine old papers, or not so fine,
somewhat old papers. The paintings are skillful, often beautiful,
and merit a reliable source of paper.
In South India’s larger cities and tourist hubs, department
stores and a few specialty shops sell endless varieties of neon-colored,
machine-embroidered, flocked, sequined, and splattered papers
labeled “handmade.” These papers lack entirely the integrity
of material that is a hallmark of fine paper. There are a tiny number
of shops selling real handmade paper.
How to increase the domestic market for true handmade paper
is a challenge. A more elitist approach might include: educating
artists and upwardly mobile Indians in the aesthetic of fine
winter 2010 • 37

At the SEWA Rural Centre, Ritha, an assistant to the doctor, prepares an
ayurvedic remedy.
handmade paper; encouraging high-end hotels and restaurants
to use beautiful papers for menus and in-house
brochures; and introducing architects and designers to
alternative uses of paper for wall coverings, lampshades, or
wedding invitations. All of this is happening to some degree.
Given the growing middle class, the market for such paper is
increasing, but slowly. It comes back to education.
Another approach is to create particular papers for general
use. As one example, Nambisan is researching the requirements
of a paper that the postal service needs for official
certificates. She hopes such papers might be handmade by
poor women whose families would benefit from the income.
This too has challenges. Several initiatives to teach homebound
women to process fiber for papermaking projects and,
in some cases, to make paper items for sale have come up
against the women’s lack of initiative or understanding of
the project. Working at home sounds great, but in practice
the women often feel isolated and unmotivated. Communal
workshops might reduce isolation but that requires funding.
In India’s high-tech boom, funding handicraft may seem like
a step backward. Kerala is a rich province with a relatively
high standard of living, but that does not mean the wealth
trickles down, certainly not to the women with whom I
worked. In today’s India, where cash is king and connections
to the land are being diluted, maintaining tradition may seem
of questionable value.
In Japan, raw kozo and hemp have long been symbols
of life force and integrity, and used as sacred offerings. Papers
made from these fibers retain cultural resonance beyond
their role as substrate. 3 Despite India’s rising affluence, deep
ties to the earth remain core to Indian values. In South India,
banana flowers are the carved motifs on temple and palace
ceilings, banana fruits and leaves are sacred offerings, and banana
leaves serve as thali plates. Banana trees, which re-grow quickly from
their roots after being cut, are a symbol of regeneration, similar to
bamboo in East Asia. Coconut, too, has deep spiritual associations
and possibilities for papermaking. Given these earth-based connections
to food and spirituality, it is not so farfetched to imagine papers
made from banana and other local fibers having resonance in a new
South Indian paper tradition. This would be particularly welcome if it
could provide meaningful work for poor women.
In a wider sense, the question of paper’s basic place in a particular
culture may be something to consider as we travel the world teaching
papermaking. If a family owns just one book in the Judeo-Christian,
Islamic, or Buddhist culture, it is most likely one of the core religious
texts. In contrast, Hindu observance relies largely on Brahmin sacrificial
experts to conduct complex rituals. Though Hinduism has libraries
of sacred writings, these are rarely read at home by lay people.
In South India, paper has been associated more with business than
spirituality. 4 Though this sensitivity is not required to impart papermaking
technology, at a subtle level, it may influence how fertile the
ground is and the way papermaking is taken up.
I am struck by the similarity of my experiences with urban PhD
students and poor rural women. Though the two groups had very
different needs, backgrounds, and motivations, they shared common
ground. 5 Both groups were energized when their curiosity was engaged
and their powers of inquiry sparked. One key to papermaking’s
relevance may lie in grounding and broadening a project’s vision,
giving teachers, workers, and funders a stake in papermaking not
only as a practical activity but also one with rich cultural connections.
The author wishes to thank Dr. Padma Nambisan and Suhag Shirodkar
for their hospitality and hours of stimulating exchange. Shirodkar wrote
on Jenny Pinto’s work with banana fiber paper for Hand Papermaking
vol. 21, no. 2 (Winter 2006). Currently Pinto is researching the possibility
of reviving traditional Indian kagzi paper on her farm in rural Maharashtra.
___________
notes
1. In the north, Muslim kagzis, or papermakers, made highly burnished plant paper
as substrate for Islamic calligraphy and miniature painting. The British successfully
undermined that tradition, flooding the Indian market with their own machine-made
paper and putting Indian papermakers out of work.
2. Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris, “Getting Unstuck,” Letter Arts Review vol. 15, no. 2
(1999).
3. In India, textiles have a parallel metaphorical role to paper in Japan and other
parts of Asia. In many parts of India, the loom, thread, and cloth appear in myths as
symbols for creation and life itself. For more on these ideas, see Dorothy Field, Paper
and Threshold (Ann Arbor, MI: The Legacy Press, 2007).
4. In the West, appreciation for fine handmade paper is confined mainly to artists
and conservators. In our IT-obsessed, supposedly paperless society, we are flooded
with reams of forgettable paper. This glut lowers any sensitivity we might have had
for paper as a numinous material, even as it raises the appreciation of a wider public
for “exotic” handmade paper.
5.Their differences in educational background are only a matter of degree. Although
the literacy rate in India as a whole is 61%, with women having a lower rate than
men, in Kerala the literacy rate is 100% across the board.
38 • hand papermaking