Pāṭa patha, the Jute path (1)

I travelled to Bangladesh during the peak of the monsoon season with my mind set on learning first-hand about the Jute harvest, the fibre that replaced hemp in the production of espadrilles.

On my first trip, this search took me to the Matlab area, SouthWest of Dhaka. Here are plenty of golden fibre fields, a plant belonging to the Malvaceae family called Corchorus Capsularis and known as Pāṭa in Bengali.

This plant grows in flooded areas with such a high amount of water that makes them unsuitable for growing most crops and turns jute cultivation into a cover crop until the soil is ready to plant rice again.

When we entered the area and right from the road, we could see what seemed like jute fibre curtains everywhere. They were spread intended to dry under the monsoon rain with tipi-like bundles of thin branches in between them. These bundles are made of the jute core that is left after the fibres have been stripped, and here they are waiting to be put to another use, because from jute nothing is wasted. —In some Wikipedia versions we can see that these stems are described as “jute fibres during the process”, but this is precisely the jute part without the fibres—.

As the rain ceased to pour for a moment, we decided to take our first stop. It was at a place where they were washing the fibres in the river. This is a hard and spectacular work because of the dimensional plasticity of the scene and the hypnotic movements taking part in it. From across the road I was able to record and take pictures of the curled up fibre during the washing process in the river’s stream.

Once the farmer had finished washing the Jute, he drained it and carried the loops head-loading to hang them out to dry, just like we had seen them on the sides of the road.

Taking advantage of the good weather, I decided to go deeper into the fields crossing the bridge located about 30 metres along the way. Hereby, I must say that to describe that rudimentary and minimalist structure made of bamboo with the word “bridge” may sound a bit exaggerated to my Western World fellow citizens.

Once I reached the flooded fields by the other side of the river, I was invited to get into a typical local boat. These riverboats are particularly flat because they must move around extremely shallow waters.

Thanks to that I was able to reach another field with my camera equipment intact and take photos of the farmer harvesting the jute that grew in front of his house at the water level, just as if I was standing with the water covering my knees.

When I asked him if I could take pictures while he harvested, he nodded but he also covered his head with the turban to pose for the photos.