Lee and Marley, Kerala coir’s new duo

Saibal Chatterjee

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Martial arts icon Bruce Lee and reggae legend Bob Marley are worlds apart. One was an action movie actor, who streaked across the sky like a bright meteor in the early 1970s. The other was Jamaican’s greatest-ever musical export, a dreadlocked genius whose influence on his generation was immeasurably huge.

But they had two points of commonality: both died young — Lee at the age of 32, Marley at 36 — and both, despite a brief career spans, earned a timeless global following.

Now they have found another common ground in an unlikely place — Kerala. The state on India’s tropical Malabar Coast is a place where both movies and music are celebrated with equal fervour.

The faces of Bob Marley and Bruce Lee now adorn coir wall hangings crafted in southern India’s lush coconut country. This is a unique marriage of art and a traditional craft that has defined Kerala for eons. Coconut trees, of course, dot the entire Kerala landscape and their yield impacts the lives of the people here in multiple ways.

As Anil K.R., Director of the Thiruvananthapuram-based National Coir Research and Management Institute, puts it, “coir is in the blood of the people of Kerala”.

No wonder, there is no limit to the range of uses that the yarn yielded by coconut fibre can be put to. In Kerala, coir is the foundation of a traditional cottage industry that employs 3.75 lakh people, 80 per cent of whom are women. That apart, it gives sustenance to an additional 15 lakh inhabitants of the state. Coir yarn produces a wide variety of products, notably mattings, rugs, wall carpets, doormats and decorative pieces.

Researchers have now also developed acoustic sound panels made of coir that are ready for installation in recording studios and auditoriums.

Bruce Lee is a new addition to Kerala’s coir pantheon. Bob Marley made it to this league last year. He has been smiling at visitors from a wall in the display room of the Kerala State Coir Corporation (KSCC), headquartered in Alappuzha.

KSCC, which is under the state government, has designed the new coir wall hanging with the face of Bruce Lee, an action star known across the world for his mercurial, blindingly swift fighting style popularised by films like Enter the Dragon. His success spawned an entire genre of Hong Kong movies. These wall hangings are expected to be exported to other states of India as well as many countries around the world where demand for coir artefacts is high.

The artefact has been created by an in-house designer of the corporation. The Bruce Lee wall hanging was one of the biggest attractions at the international pavilion of the recent Coir Kerala exhibition, an annual event organised by the state government since 2011 to promote the craft. “We are targeting both the domestic and international market for the Bruce Lee wall hanging”, says KSCC chairman K.R. Rajendra Prasad.

“It is expected to be popular in China as well as the United States, where the Chinese-born actor lived and worked,” adds KSCC managing director G.N. Nair.

The wall hanging has a coir base on which the water colour painting was done after a bleaching process. A spray gun painting on a stencil plate was used to create the portrait of Bruce Lee, says designer Rajeevan P.R., a KSCC employee in Alappuzha. “We have received enquiries for the wall hanging of Bruce Lee from several visitors”, the designer adds. KSCC’s wall hanging based on Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa had been a huge attraction at last year’s Coir Kerala, along with a portrait of Bob Marley. Also in KSCC’s repertoire are wall hangings depicting Kathakali performers, who are the best-known cultural emblems of the state. A few of these are on display in KSCC.

Another KSCC wall hanging, which drew excited comments this year, is a wall hanging with a portrait and a message of the late President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, also designed in house by the Corporation.

“Without your involvement, you can’t succeed. With your involvement, you can’t fail”, says the message of the former President on the coir wall hanging. The wall hangings portraying famous personalities is produced under the Corporation’s Coircraft brand.