Q1.
In small groups, collect fresh leaves of palash, teak, jackfruit or similar broad leaves. If leaves are not available, try using paper. Also, collect some small twigs like toothpicks. Now, using the leaves or pieces of paper and the toothpicks, pin them together to create a plate or a spoon.
Answer
What you will make: a round leaf plate (a pattal) and a small deep cup or spoon (a dona) — the very things the pictures on page 139 show. The toothpicks work like little pins. They hold the leaves together with no glue, no thread and no stitching machine.
How to make the plate:
- Collect 6 to 8 fresh broad leaves — palash, teak or jackfruit. Fresh leaves bend without cracking. Wash them and shake off the water.
- Break the twigs into small pins, about 3 cm long. Keep the ends blunt.
- Lay one leaf flat. Lay the next leaf so that it overlaps the first by about half.
- Push a pin through both leaves at the overlap — in, then out, like a stitch. The two leaves are now joined.
- Keep adding leaves in a circle, pinning each new one to the last.
- When the circle closes, pin the last leaf to the first one.
- Press the plate flat under a heavy book for a few minutes. Trim the edge with scissors to make it round.
How to make the spoon or dona:
- Take one big leaf. Fold it into a cone, so the tip becomes the bottom.
- Hold the fold in place and push a pin through the two layers near the top edge.
- Add a second pin lower down if the cone opens up.
- Test it with a little water. If the water drips out, add another leaf inside and pin it too.
Why the pin holds: The pin goes through both leaves and lies across their fibres. To pull the leaves apart you would have to tear those fibres, and that takes a strong pull. It is the same idea as a stitch — a needle takes thread through two pieces of cloth, and the cloth cannot separate without tearing.
Why this is worth knowing: Leaf plates and donas have been used in India for hundreds of years at meals, at temples and at fairs. They cost almost nothing, they need no factory, and once used they rot away and feed the soil. A plastic plate does none of these things. When it is torn, it is only rubbish.