Shola Art Work

Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, Kolkata, Ministry of Culture, Government of India brings a documentary Shola Art Work. One of the pivotal centres of Shola work, commonly referred to as the Indian cork, is situated in Mathura Block I & II in the Sundarban area of the South 24 Paragans. The beauty of humility of these villages lie in the hands of the self-reliant women who are upholding an integral traditional culture of the Shola Artwork - an eco-friendly, durable and renewable source of artwork which is slowly becoming extinct.
Shola is a wild plant found in rural Bengal which has a milky-white, spongy pith. The tissue is the stems of vascular plants is used for the manufacture of pith helmets and decorative artefacts.
The craftsmen are known as Malakars, which means “garland makers”, and they make Shola garlands for decorating idols and creating the headgears of brides and grooms for Bengal weddings. It is also used to create a host of decorative items like animals, peacock boats rice lights, Christmas trees and chandeliers. For its light weight, sholapith is also used for making helmets for cycling, skating, skateboarding and bike helmets. These beautiful headgears, hairpins and other fashion accessories are used in daily lives.
A natural product, the raw material for sholapith is the regular shoal plant, Shola is an annual aquatic plant that grows in waterlogged corners of the state. When looked at, it comes as pulpous, penetrable, plaint and willowy. The stem of the plant is featherweight which makes it fragile, so much so that it can be mistaken for a paper. The plant is grey in colour with the inner body being white. Grown in flooded lowlands and troughs of paddy fields, this plant grows in three to five feet deep water and can be recognized from its leaves which float at a depth of two to six feet. It reaches a height of five to six feet with the diameter of its girth ranging between two to three inches.
Taking about two to three months to grow to its fullest capacity, Shola is found to bloom most abundantly during the months of September and October, followed by its fruiting period. It is the flowering period which monitors the quality of the plants. If the harvesting is carried out before this period, the quality of the harvest is seriously comprised. The productivity of the plants in terms of the craft productivity is also compromised if it is left in the water for too long even after the flowering period terminates.
Then the trimming and grouping into segments are done. The segmented shola plants are generally 75 to 90cm long and are kept under the bright sunlight for three to four days consecutively, depending on how much time it takes for them to dry. Once the stem turns in to a complete brown shade from its initial leafy green colour the plants are identified as being completely dry.
A bundle of dried shola stems is labelled as jhapi which contains around 300 pieces. Then after the shola is cut in equal segments which are then trimmed in fine thin roll sheets sold to the artisans by the help of a sharp knife colloquially known as Katt.
The most important and crucial tools in the sholapith are the trained fingers of the highly skilled artisans. To create the simple shola into such wonders requires an expert and skilled hands of the shola artisans as they cut and peel it in thin layers.
15-20 varieties of flowers like lotus, lily, jasmine, magnolia, hibiscus, junifer can be made using shola. The trick lies in the knife skills of the artisans, and it is the artist behind the artwork who gives shape to otherwise wild plants.
Ivory legacy - since the artwork made with these plants are visually appealing, and owing to the tone of their off-white colour, they often used to give the effect of ivory as cheap and reliable alternative.
The shola craft production centres have their signature styles and specialises in specific avenues of sholapith. The significance of this craft is attested to by the plant itself and all of its natural specifications. Being a hydrophyte plant, shola is thin, easy to carry and durable. Its biodegradable feature makes it eco-friendly and this makes it even more preferable as a raw material.
For generations, the Malakar community has been engaged in this art form, making a living from it even today.
Thermocol, despite being a chemical product has high demand. We live in a society that can instantly provide us with an array of options to choose from in any situation. In such societies, we also witness traditional handicrafts like these waging and fighting their own battles for survival. The crucial elements of such an authentic production must be redeemed to keep at bay their drowning into abeyance for the greater good of maintaining the cultural equilibrium.