Weeks after devastating fire, Dastkar Haat rises from the ashes with a ‘Solidarity Bazaar’ to raise funds

The remains of the March 15 blaze still lie gathered in a portion of the venue in Chhattarpur. (Express Photo)

According to Dastkar, craft groups at the venue incurred a cumulative loss of Rs 10.85 crore in the March 15 fire, and the NGO itself lost infrastructure worth Rs 50 lakh. In the days and weeks that followed, Dastkar raised and disbursed Rs 78.75 lakh to the affected artisans.

Twenty-six craft groups lost all their products, inventory, and stall infrastructure. Twenty of them are now taking part in the fundraising Solidarity Bazaar that opened on Thursday.

At a bamboo fabric stall, 27-year-old Neetu said nearly all permanent, brick-and-mortar stalls, including her own, were gone. “We lost maybe Rs 20-25-lakh worth of inventory. Thankfully we had kept some of our stock at the [Dastkar] office. That’s what we’re selling now,” she said.

The shop had been preparing for Dastkar’s annual Summer Mela. “We had brought a lot of material from Mumbai for the exhibition,” Neetu said.

In the shop next to Neetu’s, Nishita (24) arranged photo frames containing scraps of Pashmina shawls that were destroyed in the fire. “We are selling them to raise funds for our artisans back in Kashmir,” she said. The photo frames have no fixed price – “Some customers gave Rs 200; some gave Rs 2,000,” she said.

The losses were catastrophic for her shop, Nishita said. “We lost stock worth almost Rs 2 crore. This was because our material and labour cost a lot. We use the finest Pashmina, and the embroidery is exquisite,” she said.

A plain Pashmina shawl – made from the light and remarkably warm wool of a specific breed of mountain goat – costs between Rs 30,000 and Rs 50,000. The price of an embroidered shawl could rise to Rs 4 lakh, depending on the artisan’s skill and material of the thread, Nishita said.

Framed pieces of Pashmina destroyed in the fire, a reminder of both beauty and tragedy, are on sale for whatever price customers are willing to offer. (Express Photo)

“We generally take our things back to Kashmir around February. But this year the winter ended late, so our sales continued till March. After that we decided to relax for a few days for Eid and then go back… When I went to the shop [after the fire] everything was gone. I couldn’t even recognise it,” she said.

Nishita showed a picture of the shop before the fire – adorned with thick wooden shelves, almirahs and display counters. “All of it has turned into ashes,” she said.

Shubham Dosaya (23) said the shop of Jaipur and Bagru print fabrics that his father had run for decades had turned into rubble. “Dastkar is doing whatever it can to help us… They’re tackling a long process of claiming insurance right now,” he said.

Dastkar has given Rs 1 lakh each to those who have incurred losses up to Rs 50 lakh, and Rs 2 lakh to those who have lost more, Dosaya said. The financial help has allowed the artisans to pay off some of their debt, he said. “If we get back just enough to pay our artisans for their work, and to the cloth dealers, we will be able to recover. We don’t want big profits, we just want to survive,” he said.