Sarkanda

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The main stalk of the sarkanda plant dries up and the grass is harvested and ingeniously transformed into a variety of products. The thicker parts are used to make stools known as mooda while the outer skin is used as thatch. The tuli, top half, is made into baskets and the leafy covering, moonj, is beaten into fibre an twisted into jeverdi, rope, which is used to web local furniture such as charpoi(cot), peeda and mooda(stools). The mooda is a low circular stool made by aligning sarkanda in a criss-cross constructing that is tied along the spine. The edges are secured with pula bound by jeverdi and the seat is woven from jeverdi made either from moonj or pula. Mooda vary in size and have innovatively been given a backrest so that they may be used as chairs and sofas. The local women make further use of this material by coiling baskets and making traditional products like the shallow basket called the changeri, and the large boiya, bread basket that may or may not have a lid but nonetheless keep hot rotis dry and fresh dur to its moisture absorbing walls. These baskets are often bound with gota, colored threads, date palm and patera leaves. A variatin of the changeri is the sundhada;it is bound with naulai or wheat stalk.The indhi, used as a supportive base for carrying water pots on the head are also made; these form part of the bride`s dowry and are accordingly decorated with colourful fabric, woollen yarn, and synethic rope and stung with bead and shell tassels. Chhaj, winnows, are constructed from tuli. As this craft involves the use of the intestines and cartilages of dead animals as a binder, its practice is limited to men and women of the Balmik community.

The mooda is built by two concentric cylindrical layers of reeds, each twisted in opposite directions, to form shallow hyperbolic paraboloids that are locked together by binding ropes at many levels along the cylinder. The structure thus formed is extremely stable and strong.The open edges are cut and bound by rope and fiber trimmings. Colourful nylon embellished moodas at the annual Surajkund Mela