KARNA MEHER - Innovating Kusa-craft

[Karna Meher while felicitated with National Award 2010 by the President of India 
for excellence in Natural Fiber Craft]

Tussar is a fibre that is being extracted from the cocoon of a moth called kusa (Antheraea mylitta and Antheraea proylei). Unlike silk the texture of tussar is coarse and brown in colour. In India this worm grows in the forests on the ka (Arjuna) and Maniketaka trees. This fibre is thicker than that of silk. In Odissa tasar is called matha or kusa. The tribal collect the cocoons of the tussar and sell it in the market for a living. Here at Barpali there lives a community by the name Kusta Meher’s whose prime vocation is to weave tussar handloom fabrics.

First of all the cocoons are boiled in water to make it softer, than they extract the tusar fiber out of it manually with hand while rolling-out the thread on the lap. This is the most difficult job of the whole process. There is no modern machine or the instruments to do it. The worker need to maintain the thickness of the thread while rolling out the yarn on the lap.

This is Karna Meher of Barpali, a kusta weaver by caste who is innovating artifacts from kusa fiber  This is an indigenous art form which has been innovated by his own self. It would be justified if the term “invention” is substituted for the word innovation. It is a first of its kind craft work, that was never ever attempted by anyone else.

Karna Meher has been honored with the National Award for his Excellence in Natural Fiber Craft for the year 2010 by the President of India Pranab Mukherjee on 9^th  November 2012 at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi for his kusa craft  work titled “Dolarasa”. Karna Meher able to showcase the view of Lord Krishna playing colours with Radha and other gopikas while swinging on a doli. He made this artifact by using the filament of the tussar. To make this artifact a platform has been created. A gate has been installed on the stage from where the swing has been hanged. Lord Krishna and Radha were placed in it. At the pinnacle of the gate Sun God appears vividly. On the either side of the gate two watchful soldiers have been posted. While at the base of the platform gopas and the gopikas are playing musical instruments and the colours. At the pedestal the figures of cows and calves have been placed which forms an integral part of a gopi society. On the pedestal a scene of the Hindu mythology of Lord Krishna killing the multi headed serpentine Kalia (kalia Dalana) has been created. 

         

         [Dolarasa - the master piece         that bagged the National Award for the year 2010]

Karna has worked relentlessly for six hours every day for 14 months and 18 days to create this master piece. The filament of the tussar has been used to make this artifact  This artist prepared a special adhesive by grinding the raw soaked rice with the water of the cooked rice (called peja in Oriya) to bind the kusa fiber together.

 [a close-up view of the pedestal of Dolarasa]                                                                                        

During 2010 he was invited as a Visiting Fellow to impart training to the students of Silpa Sadan at Santi Niketan by Visva Bharati   in the field of ikat and jala bomkai. Visva Bharati is the apex institution that was founded by the Nobel laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore at Birbhum, West Bengal. As matha fabric has got a very specific use just for religious or the family functions, so he spins cotton and khadi cloths of day to day use like dhoti, gamcha, saree, kanthia (chaddar), scarf and the Sambalpuri shirting fabrics. 

[Un-stitched pajama]

He has innovated a technique to weave a paijama directly on a khat-khati i.e. handloom machine without the application of any stitching in a sewing machine.

kiranbima@gmail.com

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E.Kiran Mohan(The Writer)
C/o.Dr.E.R.Rao (M.D)
Main Road, Near SBI,
At/PO : Barpali-768029
Dist.Bargarh,Odisha, India