VARANASI: The Covid pandemic brought the entire world to a standstill effecting almost every industry and commercial area, but it failed to stop nimble fingers of Kashi girls from creating alluring pink enamelled artefacts and beautiful zardozi craft.
These girls have not only skilled themselves in these male-dominated crafts, but are also supporting their families financially.
When most of the commercial activities remained closed, these girls successfully completed the orders worth lakhs of rupees during the second phase of the pandemic without violating the Covid-19 protocol.
A group of 15 girls and women could be seen busy in pink enamelling (Gulabi Meenakari) in Lalghat Gaighat locality.
These girls, including Shalini Yadav, Anju Seth, Kajal Yadav, Roshani Verma and others, have been trained by national merit awardee and expert of pink enamelling Tarun Kumar under Kashika project of Human Welfare Association supported by the Titan under corporate social responsibility initiative.
One of these girls Shalini Yadav had even presented a live demonstration of this art before the Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hastkala Sankul in Bada Lalpur in February 2019.
Earlier, the master trainer Tarun Kumar had also got an opportunity to demonstrate the art before the French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigittee Marie-Claude during their visit to Varanasi in March 2018.
They were accompanied by PM Modi.
A pair of beautiful pink enamelled ‘Jhumka’ was presented to the French First Lady on the occasion.
The Gulabi Meenakari is a Geographical Indication (GI) tagged art of Varanasi.
The GI expert Dr Rajni Kant of HWA said that Meenakari or enamelling is an art of decorating a metal surface by fusing mineral substances on it.
It was introduced in India by the Mughals.
This art was prosperous till about a hundred years ago.
“Generally, the art of pink enamelling is mostly done by the male artisans, but these girls broke male dominance in this art,” said Kant, adding that the girls took a three-year training under the project.
Even during the pandemic period, they completed the order of several lakhs of rupees.
Similarly, another group of 15 women artisans also skilled themselves in zardozi craft on fine silk, organza and khadi fabric under the guidance of master trainer Shadab Alam at Chandrapur in Lohata area.
Two of them, Tarannum and Afsana had also caught the attention of the French President during the demonstration of handmade emblem of French Flag by them.
Macron had appreciated their work and expressed his happiness by shaking hands with them.
Kant said that the region has a great potential of handicrafts, which is attracting the women artisans also now.
According to him, in eastern UP approximately 1.5 million people are involved in the handicraft and weaving sector.
About 26% of handicraft items come from UP, which is the highest in the country.