The art of weaving beautiful baskets from sikki and kans grass

Parbati Chaudhary shows her creations.

Last September I met with two inspiring women – Parbati Chaudhary and Naina Chaudhary. Parbati, from Padariya Village, Saptari, lost her husband but didn't lose her hope. She now leads 100 women weaving baskets, mats, bags and other daily use items from sikki, elephant grass, silver grass, wallichia leaves, pater (a kind of reed growing in wetlands), paper reeds and corn leaves collected from wetlands, forests and fields. She sells the handcrafted items in the domestic market and has also exported them as far as the US with the support of WEAN Multipurpose Cooperative Ltd.

Some of Parbati's creations.

"The women weave handicrafts in their free time which otherwise would be spent gossiping or checking Facebook posts," said Parbati. "Now they're financially independent."

Some of Parbati's creations 

A basket made from sikki grass with beautiful floral designs, called dhakki in Nepali and daliya in the local language fetches around 120-130 USD for Parbati. But she says the pattern is very difficult for the women weavers and only some Tharu women with a high level of patience agree to weave the dhakki with intricate designs.

Naina Chaudhary weaving baskets from wool

Naina Chaudhary, from Haripur Village in Saptari, due to unavailability of sikki during all seasons, weaves the same dhakki from wool. She sells them at the local market and each one brings her about Rs. 500. “I learnt the tricks of the trade from Parbati,” she said. “However, I decided to start a business of my own.”

Some of Naina's creations

Naina makes beautiful silver grass handicrafts that fetch better prices but there's not much demand for the fancy items she can produce at local markets. Women like her need a helping hand to get these products to national and international markets.

Sikki and elephant grass used for making baskets

Not only Parbati and Naina, but many Tharu and Maithil women from the southern plains of Nepal have been weaving baskets of all shapes and sizes from the kans grass since ages and the art has been passed from one generation to another. The mothers and grandmothers have been teaching the young ones to weave baskets out of kans, considered useless, and sikki, regarded as pure.

Kharhi, the base material for weaving baskets

Let’s have a look at how they weave these beautiful baskets. The women collect the kans stems just before they bear flower (they call it gabaha in the Tharu language). Then they take out the flowery filaments and leave the stems to dry. Since the stem then becomes hollow, it can be wound into any shape and size.

A basket without its base - it is added later.

The upper and lower parts of the stem are trimmed. They can be used as the base material to wound the kans stem around. They also collect the kans grass from much earlier than their flowering stage. The stalks are usually hard then and can be used as the base material for the baskets. People also use fistfuls of kans grass from this stage of growth as a broom.

Takuwa, the needle like equipment to weave baskets

The gabaha is soaked in water so that it becomes flexible. A takuwa, needle-like equipment with a rounded end to hold on while weaving a basket, is needed, besides the grass of course, to weave the baskets. Taking a fistful of the kans grass, the gabaha is wound around it. Then it is swirled to give a round shape binding the framework with the gabaha. With the help of the takuwa, holes are made in the structure and gabaha is inserted in those holes binding the kans till it takes the shape a conical basket without a base, which is added later.

Dhakki made from sikki are in high demand.

The beautiful baskets called pauti and daliya in the local language of the Terai are woven similarly. First, sikki stems are collected and torn apart into two equal splinters. Then they are left to dry. Once dried, they are coloured.

Creativity has no bounds.

The coloured sikki splinters are soaked in water and as in the case of kans grass baskets, with the help of a takuwa the colourful sikki splinters are wound around kans grass. They create beautiful colourful patterns on the basket by further weaving sikki splinters on the basket – that requires some real skills!

Republished from ECS.

Pan fried pumpkin blossoms and bottle gourd skin fritters

Pumpkin blossoms

Most people love pumpkins whether green or orange. However, have you ever tried eating pumpkin blossoms, Nepali-style? It’s a delicacy in the southern plains of Nepal and they taste finger-licking good! Called kadima ke phula ke tikiya in eastern Nepal, it’s also a famous dish in the eastern Indian state Odisha, where they call it kakharu fula bhaja.

Here’s how you can prepare pan-fried pumpkin blossoms at home:

Pumpkin flowers after removing the pistils

Collect pumpkin flowers and remove the pistils. Make sure the petals are intact and dust any ants, aphids and beetles from them. Wash the petals with cold water and let them drain.

Rice flour batter ingredients

Prepare a batter of rice flour, turmeric powder, chilli powder and add other spices and salt to taste. If you want the fritters to be crispy, use coarse rice flour.

Covering the flowers with rice flour batter

Dip the petals in the batter while you heat mustard oil in a pan.

Frying the flowers in mustard oil

Fry the blossoms and turn over as the they turn yellowish brown. Make sure the flower inside the batter gets cooked well. Once you drain the oil from the fritter, it’s ready to eat. It tastes best when served with puffed rice.

A good thing about rural lifestyles is that they try to minimise wastage and practise sustainability. Called lauka ke chhala ke tikiya, fritters made from bottle gourd skin are another delicacy that is rarely found in other areas.

Here’s how to make these tasty fritters for yourself:

Bottle gourd

Wash the bottle gourd. Cut it into two halves. Rest the flat part on a plate and with the help of a knife, peeler or grater scrape the skin off the bottle gourd. Make sure you only remove the green skin and that it is shredded into fine pieces.

Scraping the skin of bottle gourd

Make a batter of rice flour, turmeric powder, chilli powder, spices and salt and as with the pan-fried pumpkin blossoms, if you want to make the fritters crispy, use coarse rice flour.

Finely grated bottle gourd skin

Put the bottle gourd skin into the batter and shape into flat round fritters.

Ready-to-eat bottle gourd skin fritters

Heat mustard oil in a pan and fry the fritters on both sides. Again, drain to remove excess oil and they’re ready to eat. Like the pan fried pumpkin blossoms, these fritters taste best with either puffed or beaten rice.

Republished from ECS.