A master craftsman reimagines bamboo

Rajeev Wind uses reed bamboo found in Idukki, Kerala, to create everything from an amplifier that doesn’t need charging to chimes and lamps.

Growing up in the hills of Idukki in Kerala, he watched his grandmother weave bamboo baskets for a living while his parents worked as farmers. He studied for a diploma in telecommunications at a polytechnic in Malappuram but couldn’t get a job. “That’s when I started working with natural fibre, to make ends meet,” he says. “Bamboo was a given because in Idukki, it’s abundant; the forest is teeming with it.” Today, he describes reed, the bamboo he works with, as magical.

He began by making wind chimes in the early 2000s. “Growing up in Idukki, I would watch the river Periyar flowing through the forest,” Wind says. “I wanted to recreate the beauty of nature through sound and so chose to make wind chimes.” It takes him 10 days to fine-tune one to produce the sounds of the tropics, forest, streams, rivers, or mountains. “There are no nuts and bolts, and very few fixings and tweaks,” he says. It’s almost a form-finding process. “It’s about letting the bamboo do what it wants to; let nature take its course”.