Nothing knotty: A set of wooden ties at Saha’s workshop. Picture by Rana Ghosh

Durgapur, June 7: It’s a flat, long piece of wood, but you can twist it round your finger or roll it up.

How? Ask craftsman Santosh Saha of Durgapur.

To most people, the idea of a wooden necktie would merit the wooden spoon in an innovators’ contest. To Saha, it meant only one thing: the opportunity to create and collar an international market.

The man in his late forties not only makes these ties by the hundreds but sells them, too ? at places as far away and fashionable as New York and Italy.

At first sight, they look a bit like the short, wooden swords used in children’s plays, but without the handle. But feel them between your fingers and you realise they are soft and can be folded like ordinary neckties, each being crafted out of many thin strips of wood.

The knot comes readymade, though, with a strap to be tied round one’s neck.

The ties are priced between Rs 300 and Rs 10,000, some of them gold-plated or studded with diamonds.

Saha, a tailor’s son, says that as a child, he would watch fascinated as his father, Raimohan, made ties and stitched in the oblique stripes.

“In my history books I saw pictures of Egyptian pharaohs and lords with various kinds of stiff, decorative collars round their necks. I wondered whether it was worth experimenting with wooden ties,” said the man who couldn’t afford college.

The ties are made mostly of sandalwood, sonajhuri, karim or satafuli, brought from West Midnapore and Purulia.

“The wood is carved into various shapes, processed and made into ties that are 19.5 inches long. Designs are drawn on the ties or stitched onto them. Each tie weighs about 35-40 grams and takes two days to finish,” Saha said.

After his father died in the early nineties, Saha, a self-taught craftsman, opened a workshop in Durgapur, about 200 km from Calcutta. He made knick-knacks like toys, cigarette cases and bookcases, all of which sold well.

In 1997, at a trade fair in Calcutta, his crafts caught the attention of R.N. Chatterjee, the head of IIT Kharagpur’s rural development centre.

“He offered me a contract as a crafts trainer for the IIT’s rural uplift projects. I worked there till 2001,” Saha said.

After quitting the job, he expanded his workshop by selling his wife’s jewellery. He began making the wooden ties, which he put up for display at Expo 2003 in Calcutta. They impressed Deven Shah, who owns an export firm.

Last year, Saha sent 600 of his neckties to New York. “We received good response there. A company has agreed to buy 50 ties every month. We are also sending 600 to Italy next month,” Shah said.

Saha, who employs eight youths at his workshop and wants to open a crafts school, rues that his ties haven’t had much success at home. “I sold only 65 to a Calcutta company early this year,” he said.

Maybe he should now try his hand at monkey caps.