India is a land where many people have a variety of different crafts they know that are soon going extinct because their descendants do not think of it as a viable job with changing times. A man from Uttar Pradesh is in a similar situation and he is understandably the only bone carver in his village in Barabanki.
According to a media report, Abrar Ahmad was the man to introduce his village Mailaraihanj to the unique art of bone carving. The pre-historic art is practiced by the 70-year-old carver in his workshop in his small house with a brick kiln roof. The carver has also got the State Handicrafts Award in 2009 for his immense work in the unique art of making artefacts from bones of dead animals. The bones and ivory are beaten to shape before they are carved using different tools to make beautiful and intricately designed artefacts. Ahmad sadly has been working as a carver for most part of his life but has earns less than a daily wage labourer in his village in Uttar Pradesh.
With online shopping making it big, the trade has been seriously affected as people do not mind buying artefacts at exorbitant prices rather than buying handmade cheaper stuff from carvers across the country.
