The power of May be!

"Once upon a time there was a farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbours came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.”
The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”
The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbours then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.”
The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbours came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad— because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.”

So, when people ask me if it is bad that development took so long to reach these remote regions. I have begun to say, “may be”.

And when people ask if it is good that people retained their ancient beliefs in the absence of surge of modernisation. I also say, “may be”.

I can see that they are still skilful and self-reliant. But I also see that they work very hard.

Modernisation is bringing convenience. It is also bringing new habits and dependencies.

Is it good? May be.

Is it bad? May be.

I see that these communities are in a delicate transitioning stage. While they are still holding the essence of their past, the inevitable change is catching up soon.

May be!

In 2013, we brought about 500 kgs of cotton yarn to Arunachal Pradesh and took it as a drive to sensitise weavers towards using cotton over synthetic yarns for their indigenous weaves. Amla has championed the work we carried out with Tai Khampti weavers for more years than I could ever imagine. She began engaging untrained weavers, single mothers, and older women to engage in weaving plain, checks and striped fabrics. Such textiles are easily available at a very low cost in mainland India. Thereby, economically it was not a great decision. But at a deeper level, it brought wealth to a lot of homes in her neighbourhood. Rather than buying plain handloom fabrics from mainland, we began creating livelihood opportunities by weaving less intricate weaves as a medium of training new weavers and convenient income for trained ones. Some weavers took their payments part in money and part in yarn. They expressed wish to wear cotton themselves. This was the high point of this cotton drive with Tai Khampti tribe.

In this Sari, Kalamkari on mulmul, comes together with this cotton woven by Tai Khampti weavers of Arunachal Pradesh, in an asymmetrical linear aligned patchwork.