Bihar women weave a new future with sikki grass

Munni Devi was married at an early age like most rural women. Seeing her mother-in-law, she picked up the Sikki grass craft. As she began working magic with sikki, she realised that it could help her financially. With the demands of the new age and her children’s education, Munni Devi persuaded her in-laws to allow her to work with sikki grass making different household items. Today over 50 women in Raiyyam are trained by Munni Devi. And she earns her livelihood by training them in the Sikki grass craft. Besides the Rs 20,000 that she gets for teaching the women, Munni Devi also earns 20 percent of the proceeds from sales, making her a commercial success story. 

The process of transforming a humble grass into fine-looking household items such as baskets, toys and dolls is simple. First dried Sikki bundles are poured into boiling water and mixed with bright colours. Then they are kept aside to dry. Once ready, magic can be woven into the Sikki grass through the hands of Raiyamm’s women. As she looked on with a few carpet-green bundles of sikki kept aside to be woven, Munni said, “It was only after my marriage that I saw what sikki is, thanks to my guru (mentor), my mother-in-law.” Then her voice softened more as she recalled her days of poverty. But, more than poverty, her passion for educating her children caused her to first learn about weaving sikki, then teach it, before finally selling its products to the public. 

She also emphasised the use of sikki products in an age when plastic has taken over our lives. “If you store roti in a sikki basket it is healthy. If you store it in a plastic basket, it is unhealthy. So sikki containers are not just environmentally friendly but also good for one’s health,” she added. That said Sikki, which was accorded a geographical identification tag along with the aquatic fox nut and Madhubani paintings in 2018, is a substance that can be challenging to work with. 

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“Because sikki art is practiced in a small region in Bihar, it is yet to catch up in popularity in the mass market. The women who transport these sikki products to fairs to distant corners of the country usually end up selling all their wares,” said Munni Devi. Furthermore, many artisans complain about the deteriorating quality of grass because of a spike in temperatures. Brittle Sikki grass requires a different treatment from its sturdier counterpart. 

The challenges notwithstanding, sikki art is here to stay. And Munni Devi and her proteges have much weaving in store for them, with this trend catching on in the mainstream.

Also Read: How Manipur’s rural women are weaving wonders from Kauna weed

Kumar Gaurav is a multilingual audio-visual journalist from Bihar. He has diverse experience in documentary filmmaking, video/audio editing, and social media content production. He is passionate about telling stories about gender, environment, marginalized communities, human rights, and using multimedia to connect with audiences around the world.