An ancient story carved in stone

Sixty-year-old Atar Singh no longer has to go around supervising over the other artisans as they polish,cut and carve intricate designs on the red sandstone.

For over two years,traditional artisans from Dholpur in Rajasthan with knowledge of an art passed down through the ages have been working at Humayun’s Tomb

Sixty-year-old Atar Singh no longer has to go around supervising over the other artisans as they polish,cut and carve intricate designs on the red sandstone. The light drizzle or even the visitors at the Humayun’s Tomb are no distraction for the stone-cutters as they work tirelessly under blue plastic tents. Over the last two years,the stone-cutters traditional artisans from Dholpur district in Rajasthan have been working at Humayun’s Tomb,taking only a brief break during the harvest season,when they go back to their villages.

At a time when Indian conservationists are arguing in favour of reconstructing crumbling heritage structures instead of preserving them as ruins,artisans like Atar Singh have been their strong point in this debate. While most countries across the globe no longer have traditional workers left to reconstruct and restore heritage structures,India still has people whose forefathers worked on monuments and passed on the knowledge to them.

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But,says Singh,today the youth in Singh’s village,Donari,and also neighbouring villages–Saipu,Santnagar,Sehejpur,Badi–want to learn how to work on computers in air-conditioned offices than on stone out in the open. But the knowledge of this art will never be lost. There are still a large number of young boys in the villages who are being taught to work on stone. There were a few elders in the village who taught us,and now we teach the next generation, says Singh.

But the stone work taught in the villages is mostly crude,and it is only here that experts from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture conduct training workshops to polish their traditional skills before they start replicating the jaalis and pillars,using traditional tools and building techniques that were used 500 years ago while Humayun’s Tomb was being built.

It is a straight eight-hour work schedule,after which the workers usually hangout at neighbouring markets,the weekly Bhogal bazaar being their favourite haunt. Bishnu,20, from Ganeshra village and Ajay,19,from Dholpur,the youngest in the team,say they don’t really miss home. It has been just a year that we came to Delhi and we quite like it here. We are trainees and are learning to cut and carve the stones, says Bishnu.

The work is not easy. Though some designs are similar,the size and shape of each slab or pillar is different. The measurements are given by on-site architects,while the practised hands of the stone-utters are quick to draw and carve out.

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Singh says it is not easy to find work that calls for such skills. The project at Humayun’s Tomb has been a steady source of income and also an opportunity to keep the art alive. The AKTC conducts special workshops during the summer months for the younger children and family members of the artisans.