The Forgotten Statues of the Dhauli Crafts Bazaar

Dr.Adyasha Das

A chance visit to the majestic Peace Pagoda at Dhauli spurred me on to this abandoned shopping complex, the crafts bazaar at Dhauli. Covered with weeds and dense vegetation now, this complex, once an ambitious project is now in desperate need of renovation. Initially, eighteen kiosks were planned to be pitched to showcase various traditional art and crafts of the state, especially the coastal region and the Golden Triangle encompassing Bhubaneswar, Puri, and Konark. But the statues leading down to the complex are damaged and the bazaar never took off in the true sense.

The cultural heritage of India lies in the intangible knowledge embodied in the people and community who are its key stakeholders. For any cultural heritage to sustain and grow, it is imperative to have a multifaceted approach ensuring the value and transfer of this knowledge. The traditional Indian societies are embedded with a craft culture of its own depicting the contextual understanding of the people who lived in them. Such cultural heritage in India has continued with an unbroken lineage and it is constantly evolving. Though many efforts are being done to preserve the tangible resources of the craft culture, the intangible knowledge too needs closer attention. Craft bazaars pave the way for culturally sustainable tourism and enable artisans to develop a sustainable livelihood through learning design, enhancing their skills, and developing markets for themselves. Attempts should be taken up for revival of this bazaar to strengthen the artisan’s abilities to innovate, and to help create their markets.

About the author: Dr Adyasha Das is an Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Tourism & Travel Management (IITTM) Bhubaneswar, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. With a post-graduation from Delhi School of Economics, she has done her Master’s in Business Administration from Xavier Institute of Management and doctoral research in Organizational Behaviour. Adyasha has published extensively in several areas of tourism, focusing on the cultural and management perspectives. Her major publications are in the areas of heritage and cultural tourism, human resource management and tourism, and the psychology of tourist behaviour. She is an avid researcher and has presented papers in several universities abroad, like UET,Italia, Palermo, Lyceum, Phillipines University, Manila, University of Sri Lanka, ETH Zurich, San Antonio University, USA, Seattle, and several other European universities apart from India. She has addressed the students at Singapore Human Resources Institute, Sunrice Global Chef Academy Singapore, STP Bandung, Indonesia to name a few.