By Z.G.Muhammad
It was the world unto itself, as the poet says ‘itself – its Sovereign – of itself.’ That is how I remember my kindergarten class on the ground floor of a four-story building of small bricks with a garden roof in full bloom with red tulips and magenta and blue irises. On the first day at the age of three, when my elder brother conducted me to the gate of this class and a profusely oiled, curly-haired, bespectacled finely chiselled faced teacher greeted me with a big smile the fret of the first-day vanished, and warmth returned to my chubby apple red face. Sitting with legs crossed, along with about thirty children on the coarse jute mat with eyes moving like a telescope, I looked with wonderment and curiosity at every object kept on long wooden tables. The colourful clay dolls, brightly coloured clay models of fruits; apples, pears, plums, apricots; nicely made cardboardhouses; small wooden boats, an array of small willow baskets – it was not a classroom but a grand museum where everything came to life for us. Most of the artefactson display in this mini-hall were either made by children or teachers out of white clay, small willow twigs, and cardboards. Every child was a sovereign unto himself in this long hall, with the freedom to create anything he wished out of the nicely pounded white clay in a small tub, sheets of cardboard, pieces of wood, and willow twigs.
In our right, for having the freedomto be at our creative best in kindergarten, we were artists and artisan- yes, as good as a middle-aged as wicker artisan Shakhsaz who weaved beautiful artefacts out of tender willow twigs outside our school. Even after bidding farewell to the kindergarten class and moving to Awal(Ist) and Dhoom (second) more than often during the recess period, my pals and I stopped in front of his shop. It was a scene to watch him picking up small willow twigs as dextrously a Santoor player moves his twigs on hundred strings of Santoor producing lilting tunes. His shop was no less than a photo gallery. On the walls and wooden shutters of his shop, pictures of then incarcerated leaders in huge intricately woven willow frames pictures attracted us the most- these pictures were a lesson in contemporary history. Later in life,I learned this wicker artisan was a political worker who had suffered many imprisonments.
To the host of willow indigenous utility items lots of fancy and decorative artifacts introduced to this craft by British tourists. Seeing that deft hands of Kashmir wicker workers can get out of small twigs aesthetically beautiful masterpiece; the story goes that in early twentieth century one British committed himself to the promotion of this craft. He imported a particular variety of willow known for its smoothness, tenderness, flexibility, and durability from his country and the same was cultivated in the marshy lands in the heart of Srinagar. Unlike the Kanuel in rural areas, he did not make Kangari or repaired them. Still, he made an assortment of baskets of all sizes and shapes from Kranjul to Batak Zaen, willow sieves, manzul (cradle) with chains of willow trinkets, and elegant willow furniture. He also set up a training institute in Bagh-I- Dilawar Khan, which was then the hub of education in Srinagar for imparting training in the wicker workers to produce wicker products for export. The imported variety, which came to be known as English Wicker, was also cultivated in marshy lands around many other water bodies in the city.
In our childhood, the willow products were locally marketed by hawkers through a barter system for used clothes.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
