“People now prefer plastic for everything,” rued Ghulam Rasool Ganie, as he deftly worked on a wicker basket, at his residence in Sogman Lolab, some hundred kilometres north of Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital.

“These days, I hardly sell twenty baskets a month on an average.” Ganie sold over seventy wicker baskets a month until a few years ago, at prices ranging from 30 to 100 rupees per basket. But that era, according to Ganie, “has gone now.”

The story of falling sales of traditional wicker baskets is a common one in many artisans’ households in Kashmir. A decade ago, these baskets made from locally produced kaani (wicker) by Ganie and his fellow craftsmen, were a familiar sight in villages here, used in carrying and storing farm-produce and other commodities. But now, artisans like Ganie are compelled to shore up their income by working as manual labour at construction sites.

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