A visit to Amar Kutir ……….

As an Accessories Designer first things come in to the mind is the Hand crafted Product. During my Four year design studied, I came to know about the craft of West Bengal, West Bengal is rich in art and craft. “SANTINIKETAN” Its small town near Bolpur in the Bhirbhum district of West Bengal, India, It was made by the famous Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore set up the Institute of Rural Reconstruction at Sriniketan in 1922. The second campus of Visva Bharati was subsequently located around the same place in 1923. It carried on the craft training work started by Silpa Bhavana at Santiniketan.  The first cooperative for rural reconstruction was set up at Sriniketan in 1925. Though the two craft society was situated nearer to each other, though Rabindranath Tagore never ever visits Amar Kutir nor did Amar Kutir receive any attribution from Tagore's land of Santiniketan.

Amar Kutir is a co-operative society for the support of art and craft of Santiniketan, Science the freedom movement of India. Sushen Mukherjee is the founder of Amar Kutir.

                                                     How and who started Amar Kutir?

Sushen Mukherjee

is the founder of Amar Kutir [1927] was born late in the eighteenth century. He is from very remote and suburb of Calcutta city, he is imbibed with the Ramakrishna Vedanta culture and ideology. Out of this desire he moved all over India and even traveled to distant Tibet like a wandering monk. During this period he realized that the purpose of life should be “to free you from the bondage of foreign rule”. Thus motivated by his self-esteemed ideology and compulsion, along with the freedom movement spearhead by none other than Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Ballav Bhai Patel et al., all those first ranked Indian Freedom fighters, he plunged himself into the freedom movement of India. Thus he even met Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Bose et al. when the movement was at its peak. During his involvement in freedom movement he is curious about, how so many young and youthful boys being involved in freedom movement and how they maintain their day to day living. Because most of them are fugitives and far away from their families, his idea is to find a place deep in the wood where they could work on sari painting, handloom and leather craft production. Fortunately he found a place around remotest area of Bhirbhum district in west Bengal, near the banks of Kopai River. Then he gradually established the rudiments of cottage industry and named after the place “Amar Kutir”

Freedom is my Birth Right 

During his extra time Sushen Mukherjee {the time when he used to be free from the  freedom fighting activities} used to selling tea, Crafted and antiques to Nobel, well wisher member of the society Or else, he would travel to Bombay, Madras to find the mode of earning revenue for the organization “Amar Kutir”. Thus he came across different people and culture. He learned the tricks and trades of waxing, cracking and printing, until now popularly known as Batik Print on fancy leather goods such as ladies' handbags, purses, briefcases, side bags etc. He learned and become a mastered in this art through blend with the traders visiting India from Malaysia, Indonesia in the late thirties and early forties.

In 1930, Amar Kutir was raided by the British rulers and Mukherjee was put behind bars for political activities till 1937, after raided by British the activities of Amar Kutir came to a halt. From 1938 when the British government lessen the strictness of its rules and started releasing many of the revolutionaries from prison, they started living and working in Amar Kutir. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, many of the revolutionaries left Amar Kutir and were directly involved in organizing peasant movement in the villages. Many of them were active during the Quit India movement in 1942. Tarapada and Jata Majhi of Rupur and Samaya Sadan died in police firing in a raid on Bolpur Railway Station conducted by thousands of people assembled by Amar Kutir.

Kamalaksha Bose 

Kamalaksha Bose carried forward the legacy of Sushen Mukherjee at Amar Kutir. After India gained independence from the British, Amar Kutir became a cooperative to restore and develop rural handicrafts, reflecting the ideals of self–help and sustainable rural development advocated by Tagore. Amar Kutir Society for Rural Development was formally registered in 1978. Sushen Mukherjee during his lifetime came to know so many persons, but he only trust, the two brothers, Kamalaksha Bose and Alok Bose. He is searching for someone who could help maintain the legacy of his “Amar Kutir”. In pursuant to this he adopted the two brothers as his sons and through a deed of conveyance he converted them as an hire of the above property. After the demise of respected Sushen Mukherjee, Kamalaksha Bose and Alok Bose took up activities of Amar Kutir with so much of dedication in a most selfless way, to sustain the legacy of respected Sushen Mukherjee.

 

Amarkutir Shop in Amarkutir 

Leather Batik bags and Accessories :-

Before making leather batik we must know about the leather; what leather used for leather batik and why?

For leather batik Vegetable leather is used.

Vegetable tanning is a chromium free tanning; it is an oldest method if tanning. In vegetable tanning process natural tannic acids are used for tanning. These natural tannic acids found in some plant species, by using the barks, branches, leaves and even some fruits and roots. After tanning the appearance of leather as slightly brownish tinge on a beige color, with a natural, woody and earthy smell.

Vegetable tanned leather is used for the Santiniketan leather; due to the non chromium tan the surface of VT leather easily observe the color during dyeing and coloring.  

STEP BY STEP 

To apply batik design on leather or any part of bags or accessories. At first we have to cut the VT leather according to the Pattern. Then we have to sort out part in which batik design will apply

Sorted of  Batik parts

  ·         Sort-out the parts or which parts you want to do batik.

·         After sorting the parts it goes for Design embossing or to create design pattern.

·         A manual pressure machine is used for embossing on leather by using aluminum Dice  

·        To put design pattern on leather parts, through embossed die.

·         By using embossing machine they apply the design in to the cutting parts.

 Before embossing they apply little bit of water on leather where the design will be placed.

Then the leather parts placed in embossed machine and the embossed die placed on wet leather to get impression of design, the process is repeated to get the desired pattern on leather, it could be a single motif of multiple motif design.

                        Then leave the part or panel to dry under sunlight

·         After drying the embossed panel, apply the batik color in to the embossed design pattern, to get the desire look. Then leave it to dry.

·         After that they polish to leather using stone to give shine.

·         Then it goes to the assembling section, to assemble with the other parts .