Forty year old Gurupada Mana belongs to a traditional mat weaving family from Sabang block in Pashchim Medinipur. Though exposed to weaving from childhood, his in-depth training began only after he lost his parents, both of them weavers, by the time he was in Class IX. Between them his five sisters struggled to pull the family through, but eventually, Gurupada was compelled to drop out of school after his Madhyamik (Class X) exams. His third sister (Shejo Didi) now became his teacher and guru. Gurupada was fifteen at the time. 

The family used to harvest madur reeds on their own plot of land at the time and Gurupada started out with learning to weave thick madur reeds into mats. But withing two years he had moved on to weaving masland mats.  The reeds used for masland mats are split into very fine strips – which is the highlight of this kind of mat. 

Other than his sister, his first guru, Sabang master weavers who helped finetune Gurupada`s intrinsic  skills were national awardee Pushparani Jana, Nishikanto Das and Alok Jana. He further honed his skills under the tutelage of Gouribala Das, national awardee, at a training program in 2013 and continued to be guided by her for several years. His intrinsic talent and superior skills were soon recognised and demand for his mats began to grow. 

Though Sabang earlier boasted of just a few masland weaving villages like Sarta, Jhikuria, Talda and Kholaberya initially, Gurupada is very grateful that with help of the WB Khadi & Village Industries Board and social enterprises like banglanatak dot com, many more villagers (primarily women) have been trained. This has led to a surge in the number of artisans employed in the craft. With the continued support of these institutions, via opportunities to participate in fairs across the country, design development, product diversification and marketing knowhow programmes, there has been a boost in sales as well, Gurupada tells us. 

He himself has benefited from these programmes and has participated in fairs across the country but focuses only on masland. The Khadi board has also built a central hub for the artisans some years ago. This has considerably helped the output of the weavers because previously, the mats would often be damaged by fungus from the damp or termites crawling out of the ground, when they worked in their mud homes. Many a masland masterpiece would be damaged this way after months of hard work. 

Meanwhile, with his new found fame, Gurupada realised then that he could not weave enough by himself to keep up with the demand. He realised he would need help from other weavers in order to cope. But, he deliberately decided to stay away from established masland mat weavers and sought instead, to train those mat weavers who were previously not associated with masland weaving. This, he felt was the only way to keep the rich tradition alive. Most of his trainees are women and of the hundreds he has trained, twenty women work under him on a daily basis. Beginning with the less intricate weaving patterns, it is Gurupada`s desire to eventually get them to develop sufficient skills to weave the finest of masland mats, which he and other master masland mat weavers excel in. His wife too assists him, since it takes two weavers to weave a masland mat. Meanwhile, Gurupada has trained his apprentices so well, that their skills easily match those of weavers who have been weaving masland for much, much longer. 

In recognition of his teaching skills, and the sincerity and readiness with which he imparts knowledge, the Khadi Board has sent him to teach at various programmes. Gurupada has won a district award so far. His hope for the future is not just to win more awards, but to help expand the number of artisans working on the unique masland mat. His dearest wish is that in the not so distant future, there would be a masland artist in every village corner in Sabang, whose exceptional skills would be in demand across the world.