A Dehradun based startup Bhuli has been promoting the culture of Uttarakhand through its unique amalgamation of illustrations, folk motifs and nutrition. Founded by fashion designer Tanya Kotnala and nutritionist Tanya Singh, the startup has a following of over 18,000 on Instagram with their page growing in popularity for illustrations that promote the pahadi culture of Uttarakhand.
Bhuli (younger sister in Garhwali) was initiated in late 2016 and the founders have received appreciation also from the state’s government for their work in the fields of women empowerment and child development.
“I started Bhuli with a vision of documenting Uttarakhand’s art and craft culture. Later in March 2017 when my co-founder joined Bhuli, we added the food culture aspect to Bhuli,” says Tanya Kotnala.
Both of them felt that just like the art and craft of Uttarakhand is unknown to the general public, the culinary system too is little known. They then decided to work on these three elements together.
Much of their artwork is inspired from Uttarakhand’s unique culture and art.
Their artwork has a dominant theme of women dressed in their pahadi attires doing their daily chores. “I find traditional attire and jewellery a vital part of the traditional knowledge that’s been passed on from generation to generation. But at Bhuli, we don’t feature only adornments; we also feature simple rural women and their daily life struggles.
A lot of our illustrations based content supports women empowerment and child development,” says Kotnala.
The duo celebrated National Nutrition Week from September 1 to September 7 last year by sharing seven local cuisines of Uttarakhand. This was aimed at encouraging people to eat produce which is locally grown.
This benefits the local economy, promotes food safety, boosts sale of local seasonal food which means reduced purchase of artificially ripened produce and provides more options for healthful foods to choose from.
They divided seven traditional Uttarakhand recipes of locally grown superfoods into three illustrated storyboards. Kotnala says, “We knew for a fact that graphic and text work closely together to create meanings.We used illustration as a medium to draw the audience's attention to our content.
We wanted our facts to be memorable and meaningful, and illustrations happen to be the first thing a person sees before even reading the text.
All the characters of the memories were illustrated in the local traditional attire of Uttarakhand.
We tried our best to draw them in their usual indigenous surroundings like women farmers foraging Lingad (fiddlehead fern) and women wearing traditional Pichora during Harela festival of Kumaon. And to our surprise, we received the most overwhelming responses from people.
Our inbox was flooded with messages of people finding themselves nostalgic, remembering their childhood, their taste buds missing their grannies and mother's cooking.
For the next few weeks, people sent us messages seeking recipes and sending photos of their recipes. It was surprising how impactful this series was.”
Tanya Singh was working with the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Development, Uttarakhand in 2017 and was covering health and nutrition based topics. She got in touch with Kotnala for illustrations and infographics that she wanted to use in her communication material.
After initiating the startup, the two continue to collaborate with the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Development in creating ICDS material for the state, which is distributed in Anganwadi centres throughout Uttarakhand. They have created and developed material on breastfeeding, the first 1000 days, anaemia and hand wash.
Their work can be seen in the apparel of brands like Amazon which they believe gives Uttarakhand’s unique culture a platform for representation. It starts a new dialogue among the youth who are not in touch with their pahadi roots anymore.
They think that the rise of artists, filmmakers, actors and photographers from Uttarakhand embracing their pahadi roots motivates the youth to do the same too.
Their current project is to promote their first children’s book- “Get well soon, Mama!”. The story is about a young girl who’s coping with her mother’s terminal illness. It’s written by Singh and illustrated by Kotnala.
In the future, Kotnala is planning on tapping the local textiles and art culture of Uttarakhand. The research and development for the same is in process.
