Heavy Mettle

A handful of Bengal artisans keep the 4,000-year-old tribal craft of dokra alive and kicking, thanks to their charming folk motifs, a rustic beauty and imaginative designs and patterns, says Jimmy Arora.

- Jimmy Arora

Bikna, a small village in Bankura district of West Bengal, is not just any other habitat in the topography of the state, but it’s something more than that. It enshrines a 4,000- year-old legacy that owes its origin to Indus Valley Civilization. For generations, the villagers here have been engaged in making dokra figurines that are quite in demand in the local and international market. Dokra is one of the earliest known methods of non-ferrous metal casting using the lost-wax casting technique known to human civilization. Its earliest signs were seen in the sculpture of a dancing girl found in the ruins of Mohenjadaro. The craft mainly involves creating sculptures of owls, horses, elephants, peacocks, religious images, measuring bowls and lamp caskets etc. Artisans say that their ancestors were mostly tribals, who lived in forests and founded the craft several centuries ago as the raw material was all available in the jungles. Dhiren Karmakar, a 70-year-old artisan, takes a trip down memory lane and recalls stories that he has heard from his father and grandparents. “Our forefathers were basically tribals, who started dokra making in the forests because of the ample availability of the raw material,” he says, while busy polishing a dokra figurine. “They used to ferry their goods from one village to another to sell them. Slowly, they began to move out of the forests and became nomads and got scattered in different parts of the country.” Draped in a tea-shirt and dhoti, he looks frail, but younger than his age. “We are originally from Chhota Nagpur area in Bihar and first settled in Pratapbagan in Bankura where it all started. The state government in the 1970’s realised that we needed to be settled together at one place as the art was dying without many takers. They gave us five acres of land here at Bikna,” he says. According to stories passed on from one generation to another, the king of Bastar, now in Chhattis