Water Marks Activity in Fuldanga for Hul Utsav

Water Mark Activity on Bamboo Leaf Paper in Fuldanga and its display and procession in Hul Utsav by the participating memebers from the Fuldanga Village ,Santiniketan

After the initial exercises on Water Mark we decided to create  water Marks to be displayed in the Hul Festival that was approaching in the end of June. So Baiduyanath and some other young members from the village of Fuldanga started devoloping some scripts  as water marks .Some were written in Bengali and some in the local Alchiki language which is the official language of the santal Commuity.
Hul means Revolution in English .Hul Festival is a very imporatant day for the Santals.It comemorates the death of two of the Most important Santal freedom fighters sidhu and Kanhu who were killed and hanged by the Bristish army in the the Santal revolution of 1857.Santals under the leadership of Sidhu and Kanhu revolted against the the Bristish rule in India and wanted to overthrow them from the forest lands of Central and Eastern India which the East India Company the ruling English Company were trying to takeover by force to cultivate Indigo. A;\lthough the Santal provided a strong challenge and free certainn areas of the forest land they finally surrendered and Sidhu and kanhu wrer both killed .But these brave attempt remain a landmark and the begining of Indian struggle for freedom against the colonial rule.So Hul is a very imprtant day for all santal community and it is celebrated as a day of valour and bravery in the santal community.



Baidyanath making the water mark drawing on the deckel of the paper making tool toprepare the water mark



So Baidyanath decided that it will be an ideal occassion to share the process and the experience of making paper with bamboo leaf with a larger group of santal community of the neighbouring villages in Santaniketan and outside in Birbhum.
Preperation of the watermarks on bamboo leaf paper

After the preperation of the water Marks on the Bamboo leaf papers,we decided to make light lamps and make a procession to the festival ground.We also decided to project the vedio documents of the whole process of the paper making workshop and the documentation of the Fuldanga village and interviews od some of the elderly members of the village in the Hul Festival.

This time on 30th June Vidydharpur a neighbourhood village some 3 kms from Fuldanga was arranging the Hul Festival.So many of the young members of the village joined to create the lamp shades which was concieved to be of the shape of a hut.Rechargable LED lamps were bought from Kolkata and the lamp shades were created ready to be used in the procession from Fuldanga village.