By Our Correspondent
Gaighat, Jan. 28: The ancestral occupation of the Chadara community of making wooden utensils is in crisis thanks to the circulation of plastic and aluminium containers.
Hari Bahadur Chadar of Thumki, Tapli Rural Municipality–4, said that the easy availability of plastic and metal pots and pans had pushed traditional wooden utensils out of the market. “This is threatening our livelihoods and pushing our occupation to the brink of extinction,” he added.

According to Chadar, by prohibiting Chadaras from entering the jungles and collecting wood, the implementation of the community forest programme in the 1990s was what first dealt a heavy blow to the community.
“It created a shortage of materials for us to use,” Chadar said. “Nevertheless, we had managed to eke out a living. But now, plastic may put us out of business completely,” he worried.

Talking to The Rising Nepal, Ambar Bahadur Bhujel, a trader of Madhumalla, Morang, remembered a time when beautifully crafted wooden butter churns, beehives and other utensils and containers used to fly off his shelves. “But now, there is no demand,” he said.

Sita Devi Baraili of Dhankuta also had the same experience. At her shop at Pump Chowk, Gaighat, Baraili goes days, sometimes even weeks, without selling a churn. “I took my churns to the markets of Dhankuta, Dharan and Chatara too but could not sell even one.”
“People no longer want these antiquated outfits,” she said, stating that Chadara families could no longer put food on their tables by relying solely on their traditional craft.

Another trader Durga Devi Chadar said that the people preferred the sleek plastic and aluminium containers to their handmade wooden vessels. “Up until 25 years ago, our products were found in homes all over Udaypur as well as Khotang and Diktel. But as time passed by, people started getting drawn to plastic and stopped purchasing these things that we make with so much love and passion,” her voice choked as she spoke.

But several villagers The Rising Nepal spoke to denied that households had stopped using wooden appliances and instead highlighted the durability of wood utensils as the reason for the lack of sales.
Wooden containers do not break or leak much and even when they do, they can be fixed very easily, they said, adding that things like butter churns lasted two to three generations and so, there was no need to buy new ones. So, in a way, it is the quality of their own work that threatens the Chadara occupation today.