December 2022
I grew up seeing my mother always wearing Odisha’s handloom sarees. On rare occasions only I had seen her wearing synthetic sarees. Especially during the years when we three siblings were young and a handful for her. She had a central government job in the head post office which demanded her time from 10 am to 6 pm. Even with her job and the house chores with not much domestic help to keep up, she maintained her elegance with Sambalpuri sarees. I remember clearly during Durga puja she would spend her bonus money to buy new sarees or fabrics for her siblings and all the children in the family. Being the eldest in the family for many years she took care of everyone and hide her own desires to receive a gift. She grew up in a poor family where to meet the ends she had to work early on after her matriculation. My father too had a similar background growing up and he was very compassionate in understanding her feelings. So with all his love, he would buy her one or two new sarees to add to her Sambalpuri weave collection during the festive season. Together they had worked hard to improve the economic conditions of both sides of the family. Given Odisha’s hot and humid weather cotton is more favorable to the skin and silk sarees are only worn on special occasions. When we were old enough we helped her with washing and giving starch to her cotton sarees and would spread it on the open rooftop to dry. It was later carefully stretched, folded, and kept under the mattress to get a good so-called ironed look. Much later in her life, she could afford to give to dhobi for ironing services.
Long story short, the passion for handloom was indirectly emphasized in my family. I saw all my mausis, jethei, khudi (all maternal and paternal aunts), and later my mother-in-law wearing similar types of sarees. How could I not be like them?
When I travel to India, the first thing I do is dig into my mausi’s closet for handloom sarees to wear throughout my stay. I know she has also saved a few of my mother’s sarees in her wardrobe. This time I found one of my mother’s saree too to feel her warmth. I never differentiated my mausi from my mother partly because during my early childhood I lived with her and she pours her unconditional love always. Throughout my stay, I fondly draped and flaunted all of her cotton handloom sarees daily. Having said so much about my reason and continued passion for handloom I ventured to two different weaver’s villages by the road.
Nuapatna, Cuttack:
Back in the US, a dear friend from California Dr. Annapurna Pandey, a professor in Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz, had started a nonprofit organization, SASI, South Asian Study Initiatives. Year-round it undertakes initiatives for different projects. I do get involved with her team. One of the areas of interest is how to uplift the weaver’s life in remote areas and find them a global marketplace for them. Luckily she was also visiting India during my stay. So one day we both decided to go to Nuapatna, a weaver’s village that focuses on Manibandha-style weaving. Nuapatna is at least 3hrs away from where I lived in Bhubaneswar. Rajesh Ranjan Mohanty, a friend and film director, joined us for the trip.
Rajesh and I started from Bhubaneswar after our morning tea and a light breakfast. Cuttack is at least an hour's worth of drive. Both of us were discussing various things including the story for our upcoming musical while listening to the ‘Bijana batoi’ track over and over again. Annapurna nani was thrilled to see us and greeted us with warm hugs. Her positive enthusiastic spirit is simply infectious. After picking her up we headed for Nuapatna.
This was my first time traveling to this part of Odisha. Many towns and villages we crossed on our way. It is amazing to see how the city has stretched itself to include nearby villages in its control. After a while, we noticed the road getting narrower and the concrete path turning into a dirt path. Every now and then nani would call someone and inform them that we are on our way. I assumed they are different weavers from this area. Honestly, she was hilarious with her calls but full of warmth. No wonder weavers in this area have so much respect for her. We had to make a stop at Tigria, a Tehsil in Cuttack district, to pick up someone elderly gentleman whom nani addressed as Sushil bhaina. This was somewhere closer to the town of Nuapatna. Sushil (Nanda)bhaina was a tall man with a pleasant personality. He squeezed into our car and guided us to the exact location where we were supposed to meet the weavers.
We reached the narrow lane where we had to leave the car and start walking. The houses are small and in quite dilapidated condition. Each home had one or two looms with work-in-progress sarees. Outside of their houses many of them hung threads to dry after dying with color. They are tied up meticulously before soaking in the color which I assume will eventually help make the desired pattern. One of the weavers took us to his home where he opened his old almirah to show us a few from his cotton saree collection. We admired and bought a few exclusive pieces there.
Then we wandered around in the street and interacted with many other weavers and their family members to find out about their lifestyle and the difficulties they face in general. For the SASI project, we did a general inquiry about how they obtain thread, how long it takes them to weave one saree, how they market their products, if they earn enough for a comfortable living, how the pandemic affected etc. Then we found our way to another weaver who had silk sarees in his collection. Both Annapurna Nani and I bought a few more pieces. Two of my sarees from Nuapatna were made into beautiful outfits by Sabyasachi Sathpathy, a fashion designer I met later during my India visit.
When we headed back to the city it was getting late and we were kind of hungry too. But to our surprise, Mamata Nani, Sushil bhaina’s wife treated us to a hearty freshly cooked meal using vegetables from her garden that I will never forget. The yummy pickles she made out of berries and lemons growing in abundance in her courtyard, were simply amazing. She was incredibly kind and caring with her gestures and waited long hours to have lunch with us. She was so full of love and true to her name. It was almost 4 pm in the afternoon. She showed us her garden of fruits and vegetables.
Rajesh took a casual picture of mine in her garden and I think that captures my inner personality the most. On our way back we bought seedless eggplants(brinjal) from a streetside vendor which is supposed to be sweeter. It was a nice day out.
Gopalpur, Jajpur:
After a few days I, along with my elder daughter and Rajesh, went to another weaver’s village called Gopalpur in the Jajpur district. Weavers from Gopalpur specialize in tussar sarees and have GI tags for them. We received two master weaver’s contact information, Sudhir and Jagjeevan Chand, from Annapurna nani. She had already left for the US by then but had given us a fair idea about the place.
When we reached the village we saw well-constructed fairly new buildings for a school and some kind of an office. But a little further away from that sight were narrow dirt paths for streets with small homes.
What captured my attention is the low thatched roof homes and short-height people in general in the street. Little children running and playing in the open fields looked happy. Sudhir met us on the main street and guided us to his home. On the way, I asked him about my astonishment with people’s height. According to him, people from this region came from West Bengal and settled here more than two hundred years ago. While the local residents own farming lands, weavers were only given property to live by the then king and continued their weaving tradition.
Sudhir welcomed us into his home. The house was partly concrete and partly mud finish with a very different layout to accommodate a few looms, other weaving-related equipment, and a large joint family.
He introduced us to his family and their role in the weaving process. I liked many of his collections and bought a few. From there we walked a narrow path by the pond to his brother Jagjeevan’s house. Jagjeevan specialized in different motifs.
Together they educated us about the process starting from the harvesting of silk warms to the finished product. How the finished product looks with handmade or machine-made tussar thread, and about different motifs, how warp and weft have been used etc. Both of them are supposed to be master weavers and get enough orders from designers.
They also expressed their concerns about receiving payments much after they deliver their finished products. After the pandemic, the cost of tussar has gone up significantly while the demand for handwoven tussar sarees has doubled. Many leading designers invest in looms and give bulk orders. Despite the demand, a single loom can produce only a limited quantity in a month. The looms are expensive and
mostly sponsored by buyers of finished products. So the weavers are bound by their contract to make sarees to their specific orders only and cannot sell that pattern to other buyers. I wished to buy a beautiful salmon pink color saree from Sudhir which he couldn’t offer me due to the same reason but he promised in the future he will make me one special with my specifications. I clicked a pic with both brothers.
It was already evening and we took leave from them. We paused at the pond to take a picture. Something was very calm and serene about that pond next to a banyan tree. It looked picture-perfect and I wished to capture it in the frame. It reminded me of the pond I had near my childhood home. As soon we entered Cuttack city we treated ourselves to street food, Dahi Vada and Aloo Dum which Cuttack is famous for. We also stopped by to eat Pahala rasagola on our way to seize the day.
I enjoyed these long, tedious journeys to villages not because I could buy a few sarees at the source for a relatively lesser price but because the educational experience they offered to appreciate handloom from the outset is priceless. Rajesh who quietly accompanied me both times is going to host a fashion week in the coming months. He invited those weavers we met to have their booths and promised to introduce them to more fashion designers in the future.
Jan 24th, 2023
A very nice write up 👍