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Trip to Dhamrai Artisans Village
Past the bustling
vegetable bazaar stands a wooden wheeled, decorated juggernaut from earlier
pujas, jewellery makers and the tabla (drum) maker’s shop. Older two storied
baris along the main road display 19 th
century facades with balconies, wrought iron, and shuttered windows. Inner
courtyards feature marigolds, sacred trees, tube wells and the deep dug
wells of past centuries.
Inside the largest home is the Dhamrai Metal Crafts workshop managed by
young Sukanta Banik (Vazan). Vazan’s mother serves lemon-leaf tea. Vazan’s
technician prepares old metal and broken brass objects to make molten metal
into new statuary. In a cool side room, his artisans demonstrate the
meticulous lost waxwork underlying intricate brass statues fired in the
enormous kiln. Vazan’s home shop offers exquisite samples of bra ss
for purchase: Hindu Gods, engraved brass trays, bowls, small figurines, as
well as fanciful frogs and even crèche scenes. Prices range from under 1,000
taka up to 16,000 or more.
While castings are fired, visitors walk down the curving lanes to a fourth
century Hindu Temple (current 20th
century buildings have donors’ names carved into footpaths). We return to
witness thin, muscled workmen with six-foot tongs lifting the amorphous clay
forms from the red-hot kiln. Brave souls peer down from a rooftop into the
fiery heart of the open kiln. Later, a workman carefully chips away the clay
to reveal the brass object that is brushed and buffed to a rich patina.
On
a cool day, visitors rent a country boat (100 taka each) close to a high
bridge over the nearby river for the 20-minute cruise north three km to a
pottery village. A pleasant walk up the banks, through garden plots and
yards, leads to high stacks of pots, covered with hay and mud, with kiln
fires underneath. Plenty of cow dung patties provide extra fuel. One
visiting student and his father gets a turn at the pottery wheel. A 12-inch
flower vase with Bangla writing cost 50 taka. These hardworking villagers
might be considered of low caste elsewhere but their gracious welcome to
foreigners exemplifies the hospitality so famous in Bangladesh. |
