Collections from sojourns

New Indian Express

27-05-2025

In the rural pockets of East Africa, Malaysia, and the islands across Vietnam and Indonesia, the local artisans still cling to their ancestral occupation, sewing art with their bare hands. They walk to the forests, fetch wood, and bring it home. Then the entire family sits, carves, etches, chisels, and paints together, giving shape to traditional artefacts. These scenes were enough to inspire Shyam Chittari to conceive the idea of bringing together such handmade pieces from scattered corners of the globe under a brand he named Bagus — a word that means 'goodness' in Indonesian.
The alarming fact that the planet is becoming a dumpyard of plastics, and people are preferring cheaper products over the sustainable ones, propelled him to structure the intangible ideas he had into the brand.
Shyam, the director of the Bengaluru-based home décor brand, says, 'During my course of travels, I thought of delving into the creative side of the products, and also trying to market a sustainable and eco-friendly product, which is a tough call in today's market.'
The timeless crafts
These products are whittled down from natural resources — wood, rattan, bamboo, jute, leaves, twigs, roots, banana fibres, palm and coconut trees, etc. Each piece is unique, 'essentially single products,' because they aren't machine-made. Shyam's labour-intensive process is behind their creation. For example, one of the resources, driftwood, is found on the shores. He explains, 'Most of the wood used is Albizia, which is washed off during heavy rains or typhoons.' The artisans go in search of the wood, bring it home, and go ahead with the making. Shyam says, 'We have the art, we have the skills — we just need to curate them.'