The Day of the Dulabari Dummies
As well as the many other things we are doing here at Samunnat at the moment, we are thinking about how we display some of our work, especially with another group of travellers coming through in a few weeks. Last year I made up some papier mache busts using a slightly demented looking plastic woman with a missing shoulder that we borrowed from a local dress shop. She was no longer available so I asked the owner where we could perhaps buy one of our own from. Kat
hmandu, he replied (way too far) or Dulabari (40 minutes up the highway). Many kinds, short, long and even some more expensive pure plastic ones.The Samunnat ladies were extraordinarily occupied making their gorgeous Bindu beads in Navy and White and some of the Sundari range in Spring. I was not required for a few hours so Kopila and I headed off on the trusty red scooter to see what we could find. When we'd asked the dress shop sahuji for directions as to where in Dulabari this shop would be, Kopila was quite happy with in the bajaar, off the main road. Dulabari is quite a big bajaar, and there are several roads off the main road but Nepali instructions are like this. You get to the general area and then you ask the next person and gradually you will get to the place you are looking for. Or another one like it.We headed off the main road into the biggest part of the bajaar and pulled up outside a dress shop which had many dummies. The owner directed us to a yellow building where we could ask some more questions. The boy there was first time (his word) and didn't know about dummies but another man listening in did and he sent us along a corridor to a brightly lit dress shop that, lo and behold, also sold many dummies. Even pure plastic dummies.
Unfortunately, the ones in the size wanted (short size) were all broken. Not terminally broken, but pretty broken and cracked. Given that they were to be papier mached over, a crack or two didn't matter. When the shopowner said NRs 250/- (approx $3) per bust, I was thrilled. Kopila was horrified. I whispered Let's get ten. And so the bargaining began.She's good. Really good. We got ten slightly cracked, headless, impure plastic girls with magnificently pointy breasts for just under $2 each. Actually, one of them had no cracks at all. There was NO WAY we could have afforded the pure plastic one at over NRs 2000/-. Getting them home would have been easy if Kopila had not got the water heater as well but look, it was not too bad really. I just had to keep remembering to hold the girls by their shoulders as we scootered along. The ladies back at the office were thrilled and took the photo to show how it was done. Kopila and I have already done some newspaper layers on 5 of them and will cover them with lokte paper in the next few days. I'll post photos when we're done.I'm just wondering if I can get some to bring back to the Hill in December. I need at least 25 more for my exhibition next year and these are so much quicker to do than my rather labour intensive pure papier mache babes. The impure plastic/ papier mache combo holds a lot of appeal...