Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Haathi Chaap

I bumped into Delhi Haat to visit the yearly nature bazaar by Dastkaar (www.dastkar.org). Its an amazing festival where you get to see craftsmen and artists from all over India. This year’s theme/mascot was ‘Elephant’. To follow the theme, one organization called ElephantPooPaper (http://elephantpoopaper.com) developed paper products, selling under the brand ‘Haathi Chaap’ (elephant print or elephant brand). I was surprised to know that all the inside papers, the cover, the hardboard (gaththe) were made of ‘elephant poo (dung)’. They even put the charts to describe entire process from collecting dung to the final products. Quite a thoughtful eco-friend!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Nikheel,
Good to this post here. I met the woman behind Haathi Chaap recently and am infact depending on her help for my venture Green Somethings. She's quite a cool person and has much more going on other than Haathi Chaap like handmade paper, packagaing, working with other small crafts enterprises etc. I'd be keen to know how you are or planning to work with craftsmen to save the dying arts of India cos' that is kind of what I am doing with my venture too (www.greensomethings.com)& www.greensomethings.typepad.com