Pochampally - A small story...

A small story, an interview, a couple of photographs, an insight, some facts, some heart....

It simply begins like this…The yarn is brought in from Bangalore. Ikkat, the type of weave practiced in Pochampally is made with either cotton or silk yarn. There are about 30,000 ikkat weavers present in Nalgonda and Warangal district. Pochampally mainly weaves silk sarees.

The yarn is then deglued. It becomes a lot softer and can then be used to begin the preloom process One of the big problems the weavers are currently facing is that the price of the yarn has doubled last year. Over the last ten years the prices haven’t changed much but suddenly it has doubled and has caused the hike of prices in fabrics and a loss of lot of business.

The yarn is then spunaround a small cardboard tube to be used in the next process.

So before I go on with how the fabric is woven let me talk a little bit about the people I met. The master weaver I visited is Narsimudu and his lovely wife Dhanalakshmi. They have two boys who have nothing to do with weaving and are currently getting educated. Narsimudu has been weaving for close to thirty years and his wife has been helping him for fifteen of those. He studied till the 12th and speaks

English.

One of the most tedious processes, assu is when the yarn is straightened out and wrapped around each needle in the front three times and totally 9000 times..This is mostly done by women. It takes around six hours to do this for each saree and the woman gets paid Rs.10(25cents)per saree. After doing this for a couple of years the women shoulder gets badly damaged and they can have only a limited use of their arms.

One very enterprising man came up with an electronic Assu machine because he could not bear the thought of his mother losing the use of her arms. It was not easy, many challenges and seven years of his hard work later he came up with this machine. His dream of relieving his mother’s troubles came true. Mallesham is not an engineer, he only studied up to 6th grade. He spent years looking at how machines worked to come up with this one. He had a lot of discouragement thrown his way, he overcame it and is now ready with this machine.

Narsimudu, in this picture is using the machine. He could not afford the machine. It costs Rs.16,000($350). After reading a story about Mallesham and his invention some people abroad decided

to donate 15 machines, one of which belongs to Narsimudu. Previously his wife would do the assu and he would weave, his production was less than 15 sarees per month now he makes 24 sarees and does the the pre loom work of another 8 because his wife can now help with the other pre loom process.

I met Mallesham because he spoke at curtain raiser event for the INK conference. He had an idea, an idea that has saved a lot of women from the drudgery of Assu and has the potential to save a lot more women. He is a simple man who just wanted to help his mother and in turn has done a lot for the

weaver community. The machine is now being tweaked by weavers in different parts of the country to suit their needs. He is an inspiration.

The next process after the yarn is put into neat rows is to mark the design on the the

threads. The design is first graphed mathematically on squares before it is transferred on the threads. After the design is marked, rope and rubber is tied around the areas that escapes the dyes. The whole is process is very precise and takes a lot of effort. This was earlier done only by the men but now that the assu is taken care of by the machine, the women also do this.

I was told by Narsimudu that he attended a workshop several years ago at NIFT. The program was sponsored by the government to help weavers with their graphing skills. As he showed me his sketches, his complaint was that he has been graphing for 30years now and there was nothing that some students who just started textile design could teach him. They could have instead helped them with improving the designs and the color palettes. Its important to understand the problems before trying to fix them.

The yarn is then dyed. The current colors used in pochampally are not natural. They also have colors that are very typical of them, shades of grey, red, black and white. There is some experimentation happening but they are not trained to adapt. Something that troubled me was the lack of gloves or masks while dyeing. These are toxic substances that need to be handled with care and yet there are no safety procedures they follow.

After the yarn is dyed it is then separated and spun onto small little plastic tubes. These tubes are very

important to the whole process of weaving the fabric.

These little tubes are inserted into the wooden piece you can see in the corner. After this comes the weaving process on the loom. A little preparation before we move onto the loom. I have always appreciated handloom fabrics, but I was never aware of the actual work that went into it. This blew me

away. The pre loom process is long enough. But the actual work on the loom, the intricacy of the machine, the accuracy of the weaver is something everyone should experience. No photos will do justice, no videos and definitely not any written accounts.

The Loom. I am not qualified enough to take a picture that will show at least a part of the magic the loom creates. Let me tell you that there are so many parts that move. So many different designs that can be created by a small movement. There is just so much going on. It overwhelmed me, I don’t think any amount of time would help me understand how to load the yarn, interpret the design, work all the muscles in my body to produce a beautiful length of fabric. 

The wooden boat with the yarn shoots across end to end because of his hand movement. The wooden frame in the middle brings one thread in contact with the other and binds them to create fabric. The border on either ends traps the fabric between two layers to make sure the threads stay intact. There is a

lot more to understand about what is going on, but I am not sure I have the words to make anyone

understand considering I haven't completely grasped it myself.

Each thread comes together to form the design that he first draws out on the undyed yarn. Its like watching magic…as single threads come together to form a beautiful pattern.

Creating the border of the saree is a whole different process in itself. The design for the border is

controlled by a wooden structure on top of the loom and a bunch of yellow strings that you can see in the picture. The golden thread for the border also is attached separately on the loom. The border is important to bind the middle portions of the threads.

The saree that you just saw being created costs around Rs.3,500. You would probably be able to buy at a store in the city for Rs.4000(approx.$80). Narsimudu makes between Rs.4000 to Rs.5000 per month. During the rainy season they cannot weave. He took some computer and DTP training at a vocational college. He is willing to leave weaving without a second glance if he gets a BPO job that offers him Rs.4000.

This lady is a contract weaver. She is not involved in the preloom process. She gets the finished yarn from master weavers and then weaves the fabric. She specializes in double Ikkat which is combination of waft and weft weaving. Which basically means that the threads have to come together not just horizontally but vertically as well. Its complex and she gets a small extra amount. Contract weavers get

paid Rs.3000(around $60) for 8 sarees that they weave in a month.

The Pochampally Handloom park is a government initiative that has the capacity to hold 2000 looms and provide employment for families in the villages surrounding the park. The facility has several large

buildings that house not just looms but other equipment to facilitate the pre-loom processes. It is an impressive effort by the government to form a cooperative of sorts to help the weavers. They have a

store on the premises.

The handloom park has 10 of Malleshams electronic assu machines. There are 30,000 weavers in Andhra and there is requirement of 3000 of the machines. Currently 500 machines have been bought/donated. The machines can only be afforded by weavers who have 10 or more looms. The fact is all the weavers need them. Mallesham is working on getting a subsidy from the government but he believes that the government should give them for free. He believes that no mother or wife should lose the ability to use her arm when there is an alternative present.

The Handloom Park also doubles as a training institute to train people who are not traditionally from a weaver family. The current weaver families don’t want their children to learn weaving. They would rather they get educated and enter another field. The Handloom park gives people who had no chance at working an opportunity to learn the dying art of Ikkat weaving. The campus is filled with boards

claiming success of young girls making money weaving.

Ikat Art is brand promoted by the Handloom Park. It is designed by Chelna Desai. There are several

sarees, bedspreads, duvets with contemporary Ikkat designs. This is a great step taken by the Handloom park in innovating with the weaves and creating products that would complement a younger audience.

My visit to Pochampally revealed to me a lot of things about Ikkat but more importantly also raised a lot of questions in my mind. The craft is on its way to dying out. The next generation of weavers will be very few. What can be done to save the craft? Is it even fair to want to save the craft? I saw the amount

effort that goes into making a single saree and the money that they earn for it. It does not add up. Is

mechanizing the looms the way forward for traditional Indian fabrics?

I have hardly scratched the surface when it comes to understanding the weavers lives, their problems, the things they look forward to. This is my attempt at trying to get some attention to a story I think needs to be told. For me handicrafts are important. For me this trip was very important to shape my future thoughts about handicrafts.