The SARAS (Sale of Articles of Rural Artisans Society) melas provide artisans with a platform for direct interaction with customers. It does away with middlemen, and you know that a community stands to benefit from your purchase.
India is a diverse country, and this is true for the rural sector as well. With a growing interest in the rural way of life, the SARAS (Sale of Articles of Rural Artisans Society) mela (fair) is just the place to go to if you’re looking for unique artifacts and objects of daily use that are used in rural households across the length and width of our land.
This includes items like baskets, brooms, exotic spices, textile handlooms and more. The nostalgic charm of these goods is second to none and they offer utility and value for money.
At this mela, you are guaranteed authentic goods at affordable price points. The other perk for the people selling is that the mela does away with middlemen, and offers sellers stalls and other living expenses at subsidised rates. So you know a community stands to benefit from your purchase.
Efforts have also been made to provide certain permanent spaces like Dilli Haat where artisans could display their products around the year in rotation.
This exhibition had stalls from all the state’s National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) initiatives. There were many products, new and old.
Cutlery made from areca nut sheath, sturdy, user-friendly, and in many sizes and shapes, this item is a true replacement for plastic, thermocol or plastic-lined paper and leaf plates used in parties and events. They are completely biodegradable and safe as no chemical is used in its processing. Small babies were given baths in these sheaths, as the sheath has a natural hollow space.
The two people at the stall, a man and a woman, were enthusiastic but spoke no other language and did not have any phone-based app for payment.
One woman was making decorative garlands from leftover silk cocoons.
There were plenty of choices of iron, clay and stone vessels and cooking utensils. All these offered an alternative to plastic. The assumption is that people who are coming to the exhibition are aware of the harmful impacts of plastic. That said, the discourse on alternate materials to plastic must continue.
There were a lot of textiles on display. This is not surprising as the textile sector is the next largest employer after agriculture. There was a very well-organised food court showcasing cooked food from different states.
The takeaway from the mela is that our country has a varied customer base and most products find a buyer if they have a marketing opportunity.
This exhibition can be a platform to foster many initiatives. It can be used to survey consumer trends and get feedback. For example, there were no caps for the summer made from beautiful, cotton, breathable fabric.
Though many bags were there, most were of a similar kind. The feedback here is to create bags with a wide strap to make them comfortable to carry. When sellers get such inputs from buyers on this platform, they can innovate and come back with relevant merchandise that does well.
These exhibitions also can showcase R&D outcomes. Environment-friendly packaging, new product development, production planning, business planning, digital marketing, new apps and their usage, capacity building needs of the artisans and the people who handle the stalls, and so many such training requirements can be imparted in creative ways with demonstration.
One of the most heartening observations was the large presence of women at the exhibition. Almost all of them were stall in-charges and were on top of the act of selling their products and explaining.
Despite stalls selling similar products, they did not seem competitive and were watching out for each other, bringing food, and taking over others’ stalls when the original owner needed a break. There was an amazing sense of sisterhood and solidarity.
We must recognise the significance of this in a patriarchal society where much of the critical information and access is kept away from women.
No plastic was used and cloth bags were provided to all the stalls. Just that the bags need to be made in varied sizes as a clay vessel or a necklace had the same sized bag.
For craft to survive and flourish, environmental concerns, and consumption patterns must be addressed. Only scale can bring about these results.
One person carrying a cloth bag, eating organic, wearing organic, natural dye clothes, using public modes of transport, using public facilities, and so on, can be a role model but has minimal impact in bringing substantial change to the situation.
We need a certain critical volume to alter the course of mass production and consumption and issues related to the same including unethical, unfair, unjust, unsustainable exploitative market practices that are creating massive destruction of the environment and institutions at multiple levels.
The lead image shows some woollen buntings on display at the SARAS mela. (photo by Anuradha Pati)
Anuradha Pati has worked in the development sector in India for close to three decades on natural resource management, capacity building and rural livelihoods. She is passionate about craft-based livelihoods, community institutions, and sustainable and environment-friendly living.
