Vintage Monday

~ Footnotes from Jaisalmer ~

Jaisalmeri jootis, synonymous with brilliance of colour and an exquisite craftsmanship, are also reminders of a vanishing line of craftsmen, says ANITA SOIN.

In Jaisalmer, all roads lead to the mojado or jooti (leather shoes) shops, standing cheek-by-jowl in colourful confusion.

Within its golden walls, amidst the maze of cobbled alleys and between the din of people, children, camels and vegetable vendors, the tiny jooti shops appear quite distinctively in exotic rushes of colour, beckoning the passerby.

Some of these shops are housed in havelis, mansions of the rich with carving and latticework of amazing intricacy in glorious profusion. It is hard to believe that behind these filigree facades live men and women with occupations and interests that demand resilience and determination, for the desert can be extremely desolate for most of the year. As one admires their architecture, the amazingly similar workmanship strikes one. The one displays embroidery in stone and the other in leather.

These embroidered shoes of Jaisalmer have a brilliance of colour and pattern seen all over Rajasthan, though they appear especially quaint in jaisalmer as a reminder of a vanishing lineage.

Sticking to tradition has been tough for the jooti maker. As Vikas Chander Kumar observes, "Our business has been prospering, though it still remains seasonal. Our major buyers are foreigners or Indian tourists, but a small percentage of locals and villagers also buy".

"The pattern differs in Delhi where the sale is only local," notes S. S. Obrai, manager of the Rajasthan handicrafts Emporium, at Baba Kharak Singh Marg, who prefer to get their stocks out of jootis for  the emporium from the more commercial centres of Jodhpur and Jaipur.

Jaisalmer being a more remote destination, restricts its sales ti the city itself. A few like Chander have noticed the changes in demand and have diversified into other products. Allowing his brother to handle the task of crafting the jooti, he manages marketing and sales.

Hansraj, Kumar's father, takes tremendous pride in his ancestral work. He reminisces of a time when this art was used mainly for the shingar or decoration of saddles of camels and horses. In some shops, the decorative saddlery with embroidered or applique work can be found even today. They have incorporated a variety of styles and fashioned the leather into belts, shoes, hats, bags and passport holders with beautiful embroidery in a mosaic of colours, patterned with tiny mirrors.

Hansraj sadly believes that work is not as prosperous and value for this art is not as it used to be. A proud Rajput, he claims that he would rather fight or steal than beg. The spirit of courage reflects in the product he creates.

The delicate flow of design embroidery and selection of colour is attributed to the womenfolk who ply the needle with dexterity and for whom needlecraft is an intrinsic part of their folk culture. Even the most modern Rajput women will never be seen working in the shops. The do the embroidery in purdah at home, leaving one to wonder at the coordination between the rhythm of the needle and the leather, done as it is through a blurred veil!

The threads weave a subtly coloured pattern and the more ornate ones of princely Rajasthan are embroidered with fine gold thread with an earthly vitality. Popular motifs are gorgeously plumaged peacocks, elephants, flowers and geometric patterns in a variety of stitches - stem, herring bone, double-cross and twisting cross, all of amazing richness. A popular colour combination is pink and emerald green. Many of the designs are inspired by nature - the colours of the setting sun, the patterns in the sand and the ocean waves.

Though there is quite a conducive market for the products in the peak season, Girdharilal, another mojadi maker, feels it does not justify the time and labour taken. The products seem as if they were mass produced but it is obvious that production is a painstaking process. A day sees one worker producing only one jooti. Another full days is spent in embroidery. This might take longer as the jootis often have to be sent to tribals as talent for the embroidery is becoming rare.

In a month, only 30-35 jootis are produced. The work continues with the same minute execution through the summer months to enable the stocks to pile up for the busy winter period. "After all the effort, the returns are just enough for one to survive", states Girdharilal. Born a Rajasthani Marwari, he has been in the business for four decades but feels most certain that the future generations will turn to alternative occupations and further education as profits are minimal now.

As Girdharilal observes, with the leather costs per jooti being Rs. 40 and a day's labour is Rs. 20, and materials such as oil thread and dyes another Rs. 3, it leaves a paltry sum as profit, as jootis sell between Rs. 40 and Rs. 100 per pair. Part of the problem is the non-availability of the leather. Until recently, curing was easily possible in Jaisalmer but now the shoes have to be sent to Jodhpur which increases the cost of transportation.

They try and compensate by capitalising on the tourist influx, when the rates are conveniently exaggerated. And so the desert festival in February, Holi in March and the tourist season in December are peak tourist periods.

Traditions and quality vary from district to district. Each area has its own style highlighted by legend, which can only be distinguished by a Rajasthani. For instance, the oldest rounded shape is called a badashya whilst the thick leather, Jaisalmeri jooti is called kaseeda. Resembling Gandhi's wooden scholls, these are mainly worn by men, but in modern cities ladies consider them high fashion. This is found all along the border in restricted areas such as Barmer.

As far as tastes go while Indians go for the brightly coloured or zari-embroidered jooti, the westerners settle for the plain, unshaded ones. Though traditions die hard, even the isolated jootiwallah of Jaisalmer is aware of the changing trends and styles and modifies his patterns to suit individual tastes.

Surprisingly, the Jaisalmeri jooti is spotted only rarely in Delhi. There may be several lookalikes but the quality and essence found in Jaisalmer is missing. Obrai confirms the fact, "Though jootis can be found in abundance all over Delhi, there is a difference. It's not only the leather, the craftsmanship or the style, it's the basic workmanship history which is very different from the Rajasthani jooti".

In spite of being proud of this art, surprisingly, india does not and cannot export jootis as they do not meet the stringent standards of the Leather Corporation of India to achieve the ISI mark. In Delhi itself, the local sales at the emporium fetch a mere Rs. 2 to Rs. 3 lakh annually.

Every jooti maker secretly knows that soon this art will be extinct yet his personal determination makes him keep it alive as long as there is even a single buyer left.

Each craft of Rajputana has a legend of how it eveolved. And though the young man who sells you your jooti may look quite modern, one knows that the skill and pride with which he crafted it is almost as ancient as the land he lives in. And the beauty as well as the ruggedness of each jooti one sees is differnt in some way from the other, retaining the mystery of this creative art.