Tip | Santal cultural heritage: Audio and video gallery by Daricha Foundation – West Bengal

[…] Conceived by Ratnaboli Bose, Project Daricha traces the roots of performing arts like Jhumur and Raibneshe, crafts like kantha and lac dolls, art forms like alpona and patachitra and more.

Bose was working with ITC Sangeet Research Academy when she realised there was very little about the traditional art, craft and music of Bengal and other states of India on the Internet. “Whatever little information is available does not explore any particular genre of work in detail. A formal documentation of crafts and artists, at least on the Internet, is extremely necessary in our times,” said the founder and secretary of Daricha Foundation. […]

In the beginning, Bose was met with suspicion wherever she went. During her last visit to Purulia about a year back, she met a 17-year-old girl from the Birhor tribe, which has only 75 members at present according to government records. “This girl made ropes for a living. I asked her what her dream in life was. She told me she wanted to go back to school. She had studied till Class VIII and her father had married her off.” It is these faces and dreams that inspire Bose to carry on.

Source: “All about lost arts at a click” by SHOWLI CHAKRABORTY, The Telegraph, Sunday , May 11 , 2014
Address : http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140511/jsp/calcutta/story_18252098.jsp#.VMpe-XYkJrh
Date Visited: Thu Jan 29 2015

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