DAY 2 in the Series on A Handcrafted Object of Daily Use
Craft is not just about souvenirs or artefacts for display.
Today’s object is a Bamboo Strainer.
This was bought from a seller of Darjeeling and Assam Tea at the Kashmiri Gate Durga Puja, Delhi on MahaSaptami, 30 September 2025
Craft is not just about souvenirs or artefacts for display.
 |
Lieutenant General Chandra Shekhar, PVSM, AVSM Former Vice Chief of Indian Army Staff |
The other day, just out of curiosity, when I had a few spare minutes, I googled my father’s name to see what information would emerge. I put in his full name and designation: Lieutenant General Chandra Shekhar.
(I initially searched for General Chandra Shekhar, and it showed the biography of Shri Chandra Shekhar, former Prime Minister of India!)
Inevitably, the AI Overview popped up on top.
This is what it had to say.
Generally all correct.
But there was a catch.
The photograph accompanying my father’s description and career — was not of my father’s! Indeed, it bore no resemblance to him at all.
 |
The AI Overview |
When I shared the image on our family group, my father, naturally, spotted the error immediately.
“This is somebody else’s photograph,” he said. “What can we do about this?”
“Well, nothing that I know of,”, I answered.
And that is the problem.
The fact that the AI Overview is what you see first when you search for something on the internet — and the fact that this first view that surfaces is generally a mix of some correct and some incorrect information. There is of course, the inevitable disclaimer, if you scroll till the end: “AI responses may include mistakes”. To sort out which parts are mistakes, we need to be equipped with some preliminary information before we search — and certainly before we focus on the AI Overview.
This is why, I advise everyone, especially my students when they are researching on something, to certainly not depend on AI.
Who knows what strange concoction of fact and fiction it will throw up?
This is a model of the Alai Darwaza.
Made in wood (Balsa and Tun) at a scale of 1: 50, the model is not only remarkably well-detailed and crafted, but it also captures all the essential features of the Alai Darwaza. The profile of its arches; the division of its elevation into a clearly delineated base, body and dome; the variation in texture through patterns, carving, and jalis — all these distinguishing characteristics of this building have been communicated even at this small-scale.
What is even more remarkable is the way in which this model has been made.
As a historic building, information about the Alai Darwaza is inevitably incomplete. When I started searching for recorded information, I found that measured drawings of the Alai Darwaza were not easily available in the public domain. I however, discovered some basic documentation of it in a series on Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). This publication, A Historical Memoir of the Qutb: Delhi by J A Page, Superintendent of ASI, was first published in 1926. It has been republished by the Director General of ASI, and is an important resource on the Qutub complex. Apart from some photographs dating from that time, the Memoir contains some drawings of the Alai Darwaza: a Cross-Section, North and South Elevations, and a scaled down Plan.
Useful as these drawings are, they do not date from the fourteenth century, the time that the Alai Darwaza was constructed in. They thus do not represent the Alai Darwaza as it may have originally been, but as it is surmised to have originally appeared. The Alai Darwaza was extensively repaired in the early 19th century, with some changes made to its facades. The drawings by the ASI as printed in the Memoir, depict the Alai Darwaza based on conjectures about the original appearance of those parts of the Alai Darwaza which were repaired in 1816, and measurements and studies carried out by the staff of the ASI of the extant parts of the Darwaza in the early 20th century, as well as conservation work and excavations on its south face carried on from 1910 onwards.
This information about the Alai Darwaza is very much less than that normally available for model-makers. In newer buildings, drawings are more easily accessible since the process of design followed is that details are first worked out through various drawings by architects prior to constructing the buildings. These drawings are then available to make models as required. For the Alai Darwaza, since only a few basic drawings were available, as a prelude to commissioning the model I had to specially take a series of photographs from the inside as well as the outside of the Darwaza. This was necessary to communicate the three dimensional aspects of the building as well as to explain its important structural and special details. To further clarify my understanding, I undertook some geometrical and spatial studies of the plans and elevations, to see if there were any links I could uncover between the size of the building, the proportions of its different parts, the location and size of its doors and windows, etc. It emerged from these studies that there was a strong geometrical and spatial relationship between various parts of the Alai Darwaza, which was very useful to determine missing measurements and decipher discrepancies in measurements.
This was then the basis on which the modeller had to make his model.
Not an easy task. Pammi ji undertook to take on this task. And with his team of Mohan Lal and Rajesh, he fulfilled it in time — within two months — creating a model of great aesthetic sophistication.
Making this model is thus not just about craftsmanship — though it is beautifully crafted. It is equally an intellectual exercise: to study and distill the information, and match this with thorough knowledge of the materials that the model was to be made in. To then decide how these materials could best be put together in order to simulate the distinguishing characteristics of the Alai Darwaza. This requires visualisation of a special kind: it requires that the appearance and space of the building is assembled in the mind, and then translated into materials and processes completely different from that of actually constructing a building in stone, bricks and mortar.
There are very few takers for wooden models these days, primarily because of the rise of plastic models which are cheaper and faster to make. But plastic models come at a greater environmental cost and cannot produce the same aesthetic or tactile effect as a model of wood. Only a discerning few, who have the means to pay for the effort and hand-craft invested in a wooden model, and are also concerned about ecological impact, opt to get models made in wood.
And there are very few model-makers who are willing to respond to this challenging task. As Pammiji says:”Jaise kayee janwar lupt hote jaa rahen hai, wooden models banane-wale bhi lupt ho ja rahen hai.’
How and why does Pammi ji manage to continue?
The first reason that he does so is the sheer challenge. The second is that he cannot find it in himself to refuse to make models for people with whom has had a long and happy working relationship with — Snehanshu, in this case, whom I asked to request Pammi ji if he would be willing to make this model. At fifteen hundred rupees a day for a skilled model-maker, a team of even two or three people requires an outlay of ₹80,000 to 12,00,000, excluding the cost of material and equipment and tools. This is an expensive proposition, and there is no continuity of work. Pammi ji has therefore branched into interior-works. This is how he subsidises his model-making enterprise. He values this craft and does not want it to become extinct, and he values the stimulus of the intellectual and creative challenge of making a model with his own hands.
For a new building, the design process is that architects usually start with planning out interior functions. They then generate door/window-positions, connections with the outside spaces and exteriors based on these functions — in tandem with the overall requirements of the site. All this further informs the building materials to be used and the external and internal appearance. Architects, therefore in many ways, work from the inside out.
I asked Pammi ji about the way in which he starts to plan a model. He said that he first studies the exteriors and the facades, and then mentally works his way into the building. He visualises the space inside through the medium of the material that he will make his model in. He then refers to the plan to structure his understanding of the facade and the elevation, mentally subtracting thicknesses of the material. This is then the reverse of how architects visualise their designs of buildings.
This ability of Pammi ji of working from the outside in, to reach how the internal spaces would look and be fabricated was especially important for this model — because, unlike most models, it was not meant to be just seen from the outside. The inside of the Alai Darwaza was to be both visible and accessible, especially to blind or visually challenged students.
The immediate objective of making this model was to use architectural models as tools for teaching history, an exercise initiated by Professor Radhika Chadha from the Department of History at Miranda House. How does one explain the main features of historical architecture for visually-challenged students of Miranda House, especially the structural logic of basic building elements and techniques? A tactile 3-dimensional model was felt to be an effective way to communicate the forms, proportions, volumes and profiles of built structures. By appropriately scaling down these built spaces, the students would be able to touch and explore doorways, ceilings, roofs, internal and external wall surfaces, etc.
For the Alai Darwaza, three important areas needed to be accessible to them. These were:
Within these three broad areas of the interior, the important structural elements of Alai Darwaza needed to be included so that students could understand the geometry and volume of the spaces and how the building was roofed. The exterior, as mentioned in the beginning, had to be made such that even just through the sense of touch, the main elements of the facade as well as the entrances and ways of spanning them, could be easily understood. This then was how the project of using architectural models as tools for teaching history for visually challenged students was conceived, and the first part of it completed - thanks to Pammi ji.
These images are screenshots from the 2010 documentary film, The Light Bulb Conspiracy.
I asked the post graduate students of Industrial Design after our class viewing what they thought of the film. Had it changed their attitude towards what and how they buy, use and design? What was the most striking thing they took away from the film?
One of the students answered that the desecration of the local landscape and people - because of discarded electronic waste shipped to Ghana from European countries under the guise of 'second hand goods' - was what had disturbed her the most. And that she would probably think twice now before buying and discarding industrially processed goods.
"But hadn't she ever noticed similar sights in India, and especially in the NCR?" How was it, I asked, that she hadn't been similarly disturbed by barelegged children rummaging in rubbish heaps and the mounting trash all around and in our cities and towns? She said she had noticed them but somehow the enormity of it hadn't registered in her mind.
Thinking about it later, I realised that the reason that she - and the others students in the class - had not linked the sight of children in trash with the malaise of a cycle of endless consumption of toxic goods, was because of the way we plan and build today.
Poor people, like the refuse of our urban life, are pushed away to the peripheries of our cities - and our imaginations. We see them in ones and twos or threes - not altogether. And so it is easy to ignore them. To not think about where they come from, how the live, why they are on the streets at all.
By segregating people and spaces based on different income-groups in economic and urban planning, we have created living hells. Pre-colonial cities - that we often vilify - seem far more humane in comparison.
The French traveller, Francois Bernier, describing the city of Shahjahanabad in the mid-17th century, writes about: ‘...the five streets apart from the two principal ones’, where are ‘dispersed the habitations of Mansebdars, rich merchants and others’... [i]ntermixed with these different houses is an immense number of small ones, built of mud and thatched with straw, in which lodge the common troopers, and all that vast multitude of servants and camp-followers’.
It is clear that the well-off and the not so well-off lived in close proximity in such a city - which makes it difficult to profess ignorance of the condition of the poor or relinquish responsibility for that condition. Not just that, but also the mode of economic production in the city of that time was decentralised and craft- based. Neither driven by planned or perceived obsolescence, nor requiring vast amounts of raw materials. And so such a city does not create the colossal waste or landscapes of degradation that characterise our economies today.
Bernier has his biases, which are evident in his observations. He avers that ‘there are no streets like ours of S.Denis', and '[t]hat which so much contributes to the beauty of European towns, the brilliant appearance of the shops, is wanting in Delhi'. He is disapproving of the shops here, where:
‘For one that makes a display of beautiful and fine cloths, silk and other stuffs striped with gold and silver, turbans embroidered with gold, and brocades, there are at least five and twenty where nothing is seen but pots of oil or piles of butter, piles of basket filled with rice, barley, chick-peas, wheat, and an endless variety of other grain and pulse, the ordinary aliment not only of the Gentiles, who never eat meat, but of the lower class of Mahometans, and a considerable portion of the military.’
In his disapproval of the main markets of Delhi where both necessities and luxuries find place, Bernier carries his own cultural references. We see that even before the entire world was cursed by deliberate planned and perceived obsolescence built into industrial production, spatial and economic segregation was seen as a desirable practice in Europe.
We too now seem to have fallen hook, line and sinker for that line of thought. If the Ghazipur landfill site was in the midst of Delhi - next to the School of Planning and Architecture for instance or en route to the Parliament in the heart of New Delhi - would planners, bureaucrats or politicians, in their own interests, not be moved to do something to reduce it?
Unfortunately, as The Hindu reports, living near a landfill site has been normalised - even when it is recorded to be 236 feet tall and covers nearly 70 acres.
And so our planning policies continue the waste generated by industrial economies.
And we continue to perpetrate heedless and toxic product design and urban design.
Painting the walls of our homes every year (for those of us who are more particular) or maybe every other year (for those of us who aren’t), is something quite routine - especially when the festive season approaches. And part of good practice to get us ‘beautiful homes’. Or so we believe.
But what if it isn’t really a good practice? Even a dangerous practice?
Most commercial paints contain toxic chemicals. Even those touted as luxury paints and with ‘Green Pro Certification’ which are ‘free of added APEO and formaldehyde and low in VOC’ — by their own admission still contain some VOCs. Some paint companies have now also started a line of organic paints which they claim have no VOCs at all.
So what are VOCs? VOCs is short for Volatile Organic Compounds. These are a large group of chemicals, of which some common examples are formaldehyde, benzene, ethylene glycol, toluene, methylene chloride, tetrachloroethylene, and xylene.
Some of these names may be vaguely familiar from high school chemistry. But, though we may not recognise their names easily, we are no strangers to them — VOCs are ubiquitous in modern life.
The Persistence of Toxins
Where else will we find them, apart from paints? All around us.
Varnishes? Yes.
Vinyl flooring? Yes.
Adhesives, composite wood products, upholstered furniture? Cleaning products? Yes, again.
Laminated floors that pretend to be wooden? Yes. In and behind wallpapers? In all probability, yes.
VOCs are also present in stuff we use right next to our bodies, including cosmetics and air fresheners. If you have often found it difficult to breathe in cabs with air fresheners, it isn’t just because of their strong smell. It is what lies underneath and in them: VOCs. VOCs are present in fuel oil too, which is why many of us have problems breathing at petrol stations. Exposure to these volatile compounds can cause potentially severe health effects ranging from nausea to ear, nose and throat irritation; damage to the liver, kidneys and central nervous system; cancer and respiratory diseases. Children and elderly people are especially at risk.
Once VOCs are in our homes, they stay. The highest concentrations of VOCs are found in indoor areas when they are freshly painted or newly renovated. Particularly vulnerable are those who work with materials that contain VOCs such as painters, carpenters and upholsterers. But since these volatile organic compounds keep getting released in the air over a long time — called offgassing or outgassing — anyone who inhabits these spaces and rooms is at significant risk. A study published in March 2024 done over two residences at Guangzhou City in South China, observed that building and furniture materials are significant sources of VOCs and determine their long-time indoor levels. It found that: ‘The occupational exposure at the wall painting stage was the highest, and formaldehyde is the most significant contributor to both cancer and noncancer risks.'
VOCs are found outside our homes too — primarily due to automobiles and proximity to factories. However, VOC concentrations in indoor air may still be several times higher than outdoor air. This is generally true for residential areas which have less exposure to vehicles and factories. In fact, because of the shut-down of factories and practically no vehicular movement as well as no home renovation works during COVID in the lockdown period, TVOCs (Total VOCs) decreased significantly. In a study done at five different monitoring sites in Maharashtra, it was found that on an average this decrease was 84%.
First Principles
Now that things are back to normal, and there is as much — and more — heavy industrial production, automobile emission, vehicular movement, construction activity and tree felling, how do we protect ourselves? While we may not have much control over the public domain, we can improve the air quality in and around our homes. There are three main ways to do this:
It is common sense that the more synthetic the materials — whether used in our buildings or in our personal-care products — the more synthesised chemicals they will have and correspondingly more adverse or toxic effects.
However, completely natural materials may not always be easily available. In that case, we can choose less synthetic or industrially processed materials wherever possible. If natural wood is not available, it is better to use plywood instead of reconstituted wood fibres. If stone flooring is not possible, it is better to use tiles instead of synthetic floors or laminates. Using natural wax polish and oil instead of chemical varnish will help to make the indoors — where often the most concentrations of toxic VOCs are found — less poisonous.
When it comes to painting our walls (which is what we use to redo our homes most frequently), we can choose traditional practices and processes such as chunam or lime-wash rather than plastic emulsion and enamel paint. Apart from VOCs, commercial paints also have very high levels of lead as revealed in studies by NGOs. Despite resultant government regulations, high levels of lead continue to be present in many commercial paints.
VOCs are found in many adhesives and additives too. If we fix natural materials with synthetic adhesives, or add chemical pigments to paint, there will still be toxins in the air — though obviously lesser than if both the material and the adhesive are synthetic; so choosing natural pigments and glues wherever possible is a good idea.
If indoor areas are less ventilated and more artificially cooled or insulated, the VOCs that have already come in will stay with us and in higher concentrations. However, it is important to remember that by increasing air circulation we do reduce our immediate risks but at the cost of redistributing these poisons over a larger area. The toxins will not disappear; they will simply percolate to the outside air. We can further reduce the presence of these toxins in the air by judicious tree plantation which can absorb some of these toxins — but again by transferring the adverse effects to the trees.
The best option is to reduce toxins in the first place, by not choosing to use toxic materials.
Some Alternatives
Indeed why do we use such materials at all if they have such life threatening consequences?
The answer is that most of us are unaware of these consequences. As the opening quote in this piece shows, paint companies have now started stocking and selling commercial paints with less VOCs but they have not discontinued the regular range of paints with VOCs — which they often price cheaper. Also, low VOC paints are not easily available. In the area of Noida where we live, after much searching we were able to find just one shop that stocks these. So, most people end up using paints with high VOCs because of:
Even better than low-VOC paints is no-VOC paints. Recipes of traditional paints in India used perfectly safe ingredients, many of them actually still figure in our kitchens: jaggery, urad dal, harada, baheda, amla, egg whites. In fact, British administrators in colonial India such as Sir Isaac Pyke took advantage of observing such local Indian practices and made detailed notes of their ingredients, proportions and techniques in 1732 CE, with the objective of sending this information about ‘making the best mortar’ to England to replace or amend their own methods.
The Question of Choice
Most of us are so short on time these days that the convenience of premixed commercial paints, which can be applied quickly to yield a smooth surface that is touted as being durable, is quite irresistible. But, the alternative of chuna or lime wash is also a fairly quick and cost-effective way to paint walls.
Or if we find the texture of simple lime-wash too raw for our aesthetics, there is the option of using lime plaster or lime punning which gives stunning tactile and visual effects. In fact, the shimmering white columns and arches of the Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of Public Audience in the 17th century imperial Red Fort at Delhi, (discussed at length along with other principles of design in my book) which was actually lime plaster applied on red sandstone, was mistaken for marble by many European visitors!
The dominance of industrial materials has led to a drastic reduction in such building crafts, and it is not easy to find skilled masons in lime. This is also one of the reasons many of us do not find it possible to use lime plasters and renders. However, thanks to the efforts of heritage and craft-organisations, directories with details of craftspeople who work in such materials, have been compiled.
We do have to remember that lime plaster and render is a slow process. Like most good things in life, using natural materials generally takes longer than using industrially processed materials. So, if we cannot use natural materials and opt for ready-made and processed materials, please look for those with low/ no VOCs, read through their data sheets/ ingredients, and do some background research.
Ultimately, we have to decide which we would rather have — convenience or our health and safety.
