Begining of the Bamboo Leaf paper making workshop in Fuldanga village santiniketan

                                      Brief Note on Fuldanga Village

FuldangaVillage is one of the youngest santali village that grew around Santiniketan.Approximately 40-45 years back one family from the nearby lalBandh Santali village shifted one of their bamboo construction of their hour and reinstalled it in the present area of Fuldanga,which was then a part of the rugged Khoai landscape full of bushes and palm trees.So for this reason Phuldanga Village's Santali name is Kutung(Structure) Tola(Village).Fuldanga is comprised of santali families who beacuse of the growing members in the neighbouring Santali villages had to shift to find new places and settled in phuldanga.Since then numerous other families have migrated to Fuldanga from Dumka(Jharkhand),and neighbouring Santali villages.So the community in Phuldanga are relatively young generation of the Santal community who are residing in and around Santiniketan.As such they more urbanised and accustomed to urban facility.The general level of education is also high and the youth are involved in different kinds of other jobs other than farming.

In this respect if one goes to Fuldanga village one will find mixture of brickmade and claymade houses .Generally every santal village  has a central public space where all the rituals and other public meetings will happen.They call it Manjhithan.In Fuldanga the Manjhithan is not very big,rather they have a properly built club house which will attract the young people either for playing or for watching television together.Unlike other santal villages Fuldanga has not grown around a single road.There are two three roads that bifurcate the village as such the general placement of the houses are rather chaotic,because the settlement in Fuldanga has been quite random and recent.Moreover with the newly built concrete road all along the village(devolopment project of the government)the village is a unique mixture of Santali traditional life and the the urban facilitites.

Initiation of the Project in Fuldanga

So when I and Baidyanath Murmu one of my collaborators in this project and one of the residents of Fuldanga village started discussing from where to start the project we thought it will be wise to start from Fuldanga because it will easy to communicate the idea of the workshop to the youth of Phuldanga.So that we can work on a more slow process with the other villages like Pearson palli or Balipara.Initially there was confusion about where to place the workshop inside the village.Then Baidyanath finally decided that it will be wise to do it in the club house at the outskirt of the village because of lack of proper public space inside the village. So initially we held a group discussion with the residents of the village and explained to them about the possibility of the dry bamboo leaved being transformed into pulp which can be used for making paper anf other objects.Moreover since this requires a basic infrustructure to run such a process we need to buit a workshop space first and then start the workshop.So some of the male village members came forward to join in the builting of the workshop next to the village club.

So the first act was to collect dry bamboo leaves from the village.Dry bamboo leaves are only available during this time I mean mid March to mid of April.Once the summer season starts with advent of occassional storm and rain it will be difficult to get the dry leaves.So the first job was to store these dry leaves in a dry place so that it can also be used in later monthsif they want work on Bamboo paper pulps.So the village women broomed the dry leaves and collected them in sacks.The next job was to prpepare the workshop for the furst pahse of the paper making workshop.