For most people teaching is just a means to making money but for some it is much more. For Mumbai based woodworking instructor, Merwyn D’Souza, it is a matter of passion, joy and fulfilment.
Years ago, when his old mentor coaxed him to teach two young boys woodworking, he was initially reluctant but then he found himself vastly enjoying the process. “I realised I enjoyed sharing the joys of this craft with others. I felt more people should get the opportunity to experience the creative process”, he recalls. From then on there was no looking back. He began conducting regular woodworking classes in his Mumbai home and built a modest workshop to accommodate small batches of students.
“What started as a side hustle to make money to buy tools or machines, turned into an experience in being humble and an attempt to spread awareness of this craft,” he says. “I teach whosoever is interested, the proceeds mostly go towards buying different tools and learning about them, so that I can teach about the new tool too.”
Merwyn likes to keep things simple. He teaches basic woodworking. At times, he holds group workshops where he teaches how to build a “one-off specific object” like a chair or table. “I am prepared to teach whatever the participant wants as long as that person has passion and time and knows why and what they want to learn,” he adds.
Teaching woodworking, according to him, is also an attempt to keep traditional methods alive. “There are few curious enthusiasts, who want to try this craft but don’t know where to begin,” he explains. “I help them reduce their learning curve. These are the few people who wish to break free and experience life. The problem is when they get into woodworking, they are misled by social media or peers into believing that building wooden objects primarily involves screws and nails. I make them realise that once they experience working with actual wood, they can make good looking and durable articles by joinery alone, and its not just about screws and nails.”
Merwyn gets all kinds of people who want to learn woodworking: from housewives who want to learn how to put up shelves at home to budding entrepreneurs who want to make and launch their product. “There are also the working professionals seeking to bring a change to their sedentary lives and add on a life skill, interior designers, architects seeking to put their theory to practice, students pursuing an education in design, artists experimenting with different mediums, and children whose parents let them try out their desires in different crafts,” he says. A big “fringe benefit” of this process, he says, is the opportunity he gets to interact with different types of vibrant personalities.
Unlike most other woodworking instructors, Merwyn believes that children too can be introduced to woodworking: “As a child I remember losing the chance to learn this craft because the stress was on studies and doing well in school. I believe I would have done better in school, had I been allowed to experience the practicalities of science, math, history, geography through a craft like woodworking,” he explains.
“I believe that children embody the true essence of the creative process. We are born without boundaries and rules, but are groomed to confine our mental outlook as we grow older. Somewhere during this process, we transition from enjoying the environment in its purest colourful form to quantifying it on a colour wheel,” Merwyn expounds. “For a child, on the other hand, everything is possible, they just need to be shown how. The only limitation that I see is the age and motor function; as long as the child is capable of understanding the safety aspect of woodworking, I help them learn. I allow them to use the tools under supervision and let them experience the power, the joy, the grief etc first hand. The sessions I have hosted for children, have seen some wonderful outcomes, they seldom complain about the effort required, and when the piece is ready, the smile on their face is priceless,” he remarks.
Merwyn’s 6-year-old son has been an inspiration. The little boy enjoys helping him with smaller builds, cleaning the workshop and so on. He has yet to warm up to the tools, but enjoys the process of designing and supervises Merwyn while he makes his designs.
Woodworking, instructing and designing today is a way of life for Merwyn. And the astounding part is that he is largely self-taught. Although he came from a family of rather creative people – his mother was exceptional in needlework, crocheting, and knitting, his grandmother was top-notch in patchwork and quilts, while his uncle, a JJ School of Arts alumni and cinematographer was great at sketching - he was constantly reminded to focus on doing better at school, rather than indulging in arts and crafts.
Later, as he became interested in woodworking and other crafts, Merwyn started picking up knowledge from every resource he could lay his hands on. “As there were no formal schools teaching traditional joinery, I would read up on articles from craftsperson, watch YouTube instructional videos, download e-books and practise woodworking,” he recalls. “Implementing my learning into actual builds became a regular affair and I learnt mostly from trial and error.”
Merwyn bought tools on a need only basis from local hardware stores and spent time learning about each tool, the parts they were made of and how to maintain and hone them. Initially, he made small objects for his home, friends and family. “Having limited tools and a very conservative workspace, there was little I could make. But the passion was strong, so implementing the knowledge I had picked up came easy,” he explains. He eventually realised it was best to focus on working with hand tools rather than with expensive power tools.
“Machines are good for mass production; they help reduce the time to make something. But that comes with a cost,” he feels. “Also, in a metro city, the lack of space, absence of proper service centres, the noise involved, make power tools a poor choice. Hand tools on the other hand are a joyful experience. The swish of the hand plane, the rhythm of a nice saw cutting through wood are therapeutic, it transforms one’s state of mind. The pure joy of using one's limited skills, tools, and time to make something may not be easy and does require a fair amount of skill development, but it is a hugely satisfying and humbling experience!”
People like Merwyn D’Souza bridge an acute gap in our rapidly changing society. Merwyn is conscious of that trend: “Craftmanship in India is slowly dying its natural death. In my humble opinion, our society is the reason. We as consumers want our pieces to be prepared as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The traditional craftsman cannot compete. Most workers prefer earning a quick buck by cutting corners. They trade off skill and knowledge for machine-made, mass-produced items, which fail in comparison to handmade pieces with traditional joinery. My belief is that there may be only a handful of traditional craftsmen left in India.”
This sad decline is one of the things that motivates him to teach traditional woodworking and design. He believes that Indians are naturally creative but need to start making things to bring their latent talents to fruition. “We Indians are traditional craftsmen, and artists and we are creative and frugal,” he believes, adding: “In the rat race we have signed up for, we have forgotten how to make, fix, and use our hands for purposes other than working in offices. We need to step up and learn how to fix a switch, paint our homes, fix a leaky tap, make a small bookshelf, make clay, bake, stargaze, etc. Over time, we have traded all that for a life in a cubical and two sightseeing vacations in a year. That has to change.”
Merwyn D’Souza can be contacted though Instagram - "https://www.instagram.com/merwyn_in/" - and his website www.Liamskyedesigns.com
Indranil Banerjie
November 2024
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