Strolling through the bylanes of Sankhari Sahi in the South Odisha district of Nabarangpur, you are likely to come across Pravati Patro with a group of women illustrating plain or coloured bamboo boxes using delicate multi-hued threads. “This box tells the story of a farmer,” Patro holds up a lacquered box she has been working on—the illustration on its side shows a farmer tilling his field. It has fallen to Patro and a group of craftswomen she leads to keep the art of making lacquered boxes alive.
Lacquering is delicate work and quite warm because of the fire involved in the process—the resins have to be kept constantly soft and yielding. To make her lacquered box, Patro melts the resin first and mixes the pigments and dyes to get the exact shade she wants. Next she coats a bamboo box evenly with the melted lacquer generated from kusum plants to create a base. She then imprints designs on it with colourful lac threads prepared by melting the resin. She pastes the bright threads on the boxes in different designs.
Lacquer art is quite exotic and exclusive since only a few families and villages are involved. Patro says lac craft is now only confined to a few households in Nabarangpur. She and her fellow artisans procure bamboo boxes from four tribal families in Khandiguda village in neighbouring Koraput district. The colours come from Berhampur in Southern Odisha. There are only two kinds of lacquer products, mainly extant in Nabarangpur and Balasore districts—lacquered boxes (Lakha Pedhi) and lac dolls (Jau Kandhei). Both are associated with weddings. The brides of Nabarangpur receive lacquered boxes as wedding gifts from their parents while lac dolls are presented to newlyweds as symbols of love.
The award-winning Patro, who began practising the art when she was 15, says, “Jau Kandheis are shown regularly at national and state-level exhibitions. The demand is highest during the wedding season and at some festivals.” She operates Maa Mangala Lac Artisans Association and three SHGs with 45 women members that teach the craft. For people living in pandemic induced silos, a gleaming lacquer box is a thing of lost beauty.
The largest order for lacquered boxes was from the Odisha govt in 2016.
700 of these were gifted to players at the Hockey World Cup in Bhubaneswar