Keeping dreams alive

My visit to Chhindwara was rife with mixed feelings, an anticipation not unmixed with a certain uncertainty ( what an oxymoron!). It was a project that had been on the burner for all of a 365+365 plus some days and now that it had been tossed into my lap or rather our organisation’s, it came with the rider that it had to be done in x number of days, starting NOW, with not a minute to be expended on wasteful activities such as drawing a deep shuddering breath and getting one’s addled thoughts into some order. My trepidation of course had a history to it. It was an intervention amongst weavers, where the weaving tradition had all but gone into a comatose state and what remained was a stale whiff of nostalgia amongst the old hands, who harboured dim memories of a glory, which in many ways continued to shine rather brightly in their imagined perception of it. And what touched me very deeply during my various interactions with them, was the hope that still made their eyes sparkle as they looked at me. That and their guileless faith that we could and would Deliver. All of this played itself through me as I took the early morning flight to Nagpur, the nearest airport that delivers one at a do able three hours drive away from destination point. And so I went through the packed flight, my middle seat affording little elbow room, exacerbated too by the size of Amitava Ghosh’s latest tome on my lap. Nagpur’s airport leaves little desire to linger in its badly maintained interiors and so I exited quickly, thankful that my bag had for once made a timely appearance.

The drive to Chhindwara is a rather graphic representation of the priorities of the states one has to pass through. Up until the border where Maharashtra winds into Madhya Pradesh’s, there is a fairly developed habitation with shops and manufacturing units dotting the roadside but deplorably a vegetation that looks thread bare. But cross the border and it seems like a world transformed. The population thins and so do the symbols of development. But what replaces it instead is a lush variety of vegetation: fields of undulating cotton stalks merging into bushes of thorny lantana, the sudden appearance of sparkling waters, which soon enough undulate into the hills of the Satpura range dotted by thick forests of Sal and teak. Until all of this is subsumed into the bustling town that Chhindwara is metamorphosing into.
My first stop had to be a hotel for varying reasons not the least being that hunting one, post what I anticipated to be a late meeting, wouldn’t have been an easy prospect. I was interestingly spoilt for choice. There was the rather plush, newly opened hotel within the town, whose posters displaying delectably designed rooms , peeped at one from various facades, but which I could immediately visualize as closed to the elements and the view; while the other a little dilapidated perhaps was a resort, which hugged the area’s natural beauty. And so without much ado I chose the latter, though later in the night I did question my wisdom, when I found myself the only inhabitant in the hotel , though the manager’s voice transferred to me over my mobile, since the room telephone didn’t work, did reassure me that there were guards posted at the gates!
And so it was time to go to the weavers, where once again I was overwhelmed by their warmth, their hope and their desire to return to their traditional craft – hand weaving. A craft, which a young generation has little time for as a ‘dead ‘ occupation had forced them to pursue other ways of earning a living. But for the older ones, who now live by the small incomes brought about by the unshelling of supari nuts or the back breaking job of pulling rickshaws – the dream of having their hands create endless yards of shimmering fabrics, is an undying one.