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

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.
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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