A papiermâché craftsman at work in Srinagar
| Photo Credit: NISSAR AHMAD
Militancy, a flood, the pandemic — Kashmir's ancient art of papier-mâché is at its lowest ebb now, but there may be a ray of hope for the future
Sometime in the 12th century, Omar Khayyam, the Persian poet and astronomer, wrote these lines about love and longing: “Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring / The winter garment of repentance fling: The bird of time has but a little way / To fly — and Lo! the bird is on the wing.”
Khayyam could never have imagined that his words would be depicted, nearly a millennium later, in a far-off place called Kashmir, on four-foot-high, intricately designed, papier-mâché vases. His poems continue to inspire the masters of papier-mâché art, who live in the narrow bylanes of Srinagar’s Zadibal-Alamgari Bazaar. They have, for centuries, striven to bring to life the literary works of poets, Iranian kings and Mughal emperors, adding their familiar, local motifs to the mix.