A group of women in Paradsinga village in Madhya Pradesh are mixing some unique ingredients at one of their homes, with Diwali only a few days away. This is a time when the women are taking time out to prepare ‘seed crackers’.
These crackers contain vegetable seeds that can be planted in the soil to grow various green plants and also these crackers do not explode.
The festival known as Beej Parv was started by a farmer and a local artist named Shweta Bhattad, as an extension of her six-year-old Gram Art project. Today the group united over 100 members from seven villages under the cause.
Bhattad told, “There is a huge tree on our farm where hundreds of birds have made their nests. A couple of years ago, we were celebrating Diwali on the field and village children were bursting a lot of firecrackers. I was shocked to see that each time a firecracker goes off, birds fell down from the tree due to the shock. That forced me to think of ‘seed crackers’ which neither harm the environment nor the animals and birds, They are packaged exactly like different firecrackers such as anaars, chakris, ladis, and bombs but are loaded with seeds of coriander, radish, chilli, fenugreek, spinach, tomato and golden shower tree. People are encouraged to plant them either in pots or in their kitchen garden so that they can grow fresh vegetables in their own homes. This initiative is all an extension of our green endeavour, which started with kapaas rachis, seed papers, seed balls, etc. From providing training and material for online marketing, we take care of everything.”
Last year, the group sold out 15,000 crackers. This time out of 50,000 crackers, 35,000 have already been sold through Gram Art’s online portal.
