‘None ready to take up this job in my family, this art will die with me’
Bandipora : A-110-year old Abdul Samad Ganaie from Kehousa village of north Kashmir’s Bandipora district is busy making ‘Grass Sandals’ (Pulharoo) on the front porch of his house, smoking hooka in between.
Ganaie, is known in his village for making wonderful wearing Kashmiri traditional Grass Sandals also typically known as “Pulhoor”. The elderly man is committed to revive the age-old art of Kashmir—making sandals out of grass.
“I started doing this job at the age 40,” Ganaie told, at his home. “I make slippers out of soft grass which is kept in water for several days.”
Ganaie’s said that when people of Kashmir were not able to wear foot fear ie. Before 1960 due to poverty, grass-made slippers were only choice for them. “Now that times have changed and peoples’ economic conditions have changed, there are less takers for grass slippers but I have kept the art alive.”
He said: “I used to live on this and would feed whole family but now everything has changed. Sometimes some people used to pay me Rs 10, the value of which was like Rs 1000 those days.” He said there is none in his family interested in weaving grass sandals. “This art will die with me,” he said amid sobs—(KNO)
