Kala Sthapati.

The artisan

The man who
kept a craft
alive.

Padma Shri Chitrakar Venkata Raju has spent forty years rebuilding the Etikoppaka tradition, patiently, quietly, and entirely by hand.

The honour

The President.
The Padma Shri.

For four decades of work in keeping a vanishing Indian craft alive, CV Raju was conferred the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honours, presented by the President of India at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

For him, the recognition was never the point. “The toys do the talking,” he often says. “I only kept the door open.”

CV Raju receiving the Padma Shri from the President of India

Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi

Mann Ki Baat

The Prime Minister,
on the craft.

On Mann Ki Baat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about the cultural significance of Etikoppaka and the artisans who carry it forward, bringing a quiet village craft to a national audience.

Featured on Mann Ki Baat

CV Raju applying natural lacquer in his Etikoppaka workshop

At the lathe, Etikoppaka, Andhra Pradesh

The revival

He found a craft
on the edge.

In the early 1980s, the Etikoppaka workshops were quiet. Cheap plastic had flooded India’s toy markets. Artisans were leaving for daily-wage work in the cities.

CV Raju refused to let it disappear. He returned to the village, rebuilt the kilns, restored the use of plant-based dyes, and gathered the few artisans who remained, turning the lathes back on, one family at a time.

Today, forty-plus artisan families live from the craft again, a rare living-craft revival, sustained entirely by natural materials and patient hands.

Timeline

A life,
in chapters.

  1. 1954

    Born in Etikoppaka

  2. 1970s

    Apprenticed to masters

  3. 1985

    Returns home

  4. 1990s

    Plant dyes revived

  5. 2000s

    40 families restored

  6. 2017

    GI-tag awarded

  7. 2023

    Padma Shri

  8. Today

    Global reach

From the workshop

A craft passed,
hand to hand.

Wood carving, natural dyes, lacquer finishing, every piece carries the unmistakable rhythm of the Etikoppaka workshop.

Applying friction lacquer
Lacquer melted by hand
Presenting wooden toys to a visitor
Sharing the craft with the world
CV Raju with finished lacquerware
A morning's work, displayed
Demonstrating the craft to students
Teaching the next generation
Mixing natural dyes
Plant-based pigments, hand-mixed
Sorting coloured lacquer sticks
Every colour, made on site

In his words

Three sentences,
forty years.

“

I did not save the craft. The craft saved me.

, CV Raju
“

When the lathe turns, four hundred years turn with it.

, CV Raju
“

Plastic toys break. A wooden toy waits for the next child.

, CV Raju

A life in lacquer

“When a child holds an Etikoppaka toy, four hundred years of hands hold them back.”