From junior artistes to hero

Manish Saksena is a stickler for punctuality Hyderabad and its surrounding province has seen unseasonal downpour the previous night Saksena 51 the lead at Aadyam Handwoven hopes to hoodwink the physics of the monsoon by setting off early to Puttapaka village in Nalgonda district with a crew of journalists this June morningCluster manager Ajith Kamarapu has shared the live location on Google Maps and will meet us there to take us to the weaversrsquo homes Kamarapu 35 has a diploma in textile technology and plays mediator between the corporate social enterprise that works with weaver communities in India and ikat artisans also overseeing production and quality control And on occasions like on this visit he doubles up as translator ldquoI was one of the first two hires when the brand launchedrdquo he says proudlyAn Aditya Birla Group initiative Aadyam formally launched with a store at New Delhirsquos Khan Market in October 2020 followed by outposts in Mumbai Hyderabad and Bengaluru it also has a retail website ldquoThe concept is built around creating a selfsustaining ecosystem for Indian artisans by supporting and selling their crafts in the domestic and global markets thus impacting their quality of liferdquo Saksena sharesPuttapakabased waft ikat artisan Gajam Venkateshwarlursquos father was an expert at the famed Telia Rumal one of the most intricate doubleikat weaves seen here inspecting street warpingCurrently it works with communities in Bhuj Banaras and Pochampally Ikat textiles are revered in India and the West which made Pochampally an obvious choice ldquoThere are ikat traditions in Orissa and Gujarat too but those focus mainly on sarees Pochampally ikat has a wider multifaceted use Since our focus is split 5050 between home textiles and apparel including sarees shawls stoles and pocket squares it fitted the billrdquo Saksena reasons adding that his role is actually about ldquopolicingrdquo ldquoI am like the man at the checkpoint I ensure that what we produce with the design team followed by artisan partners preserves the essence of Pochampally ikatrdquoWhile focusing on clusters in the famed Pochampally it also works in the neighbouring villages of Puttapaka Choutuppal and Koyyalagudem to create four collections annually two for home textiles and another two for apparel ldquoWe are facilitators but also cocreators and providers of infrastructure to the clusters We ensure that their looms work 365 days a year to allow them a steady income This is a partnership not a transactionrdquoWe are on our way to Puttapaka and barely 60 kms down the NH65 highway past Ramoji Film City traces of Hyderabad the statersquos capital have vanishedManish Saksena lead at Aadyam HandwovenThe wide asphalt grid and humdrum of the highway shrinks to a pinched dusty motorway lined by homes with cobbled roofs the women in mildewstained marigold and vermillion sarees gather to discuss the day around the rangoli decorating their porch A shrine to the village pantheon arrives every two kmsAt Puttapaka a small door opens to a spacious hall painted in the lightest of blues the weathered wooden beams stand doodled in oilcolour floral designs Therersquos a corner with stacks and rolls of undyed yarn or thread and ready fabric awaiting its destinyWaft ikat artisan Gajam Venkateshwarlu is with Padma his partner in work and life and they seem to have received a message from Saksena because Gajam gets right down to demonstrating how the yarn is bundled and bound in linear ties meticulously by hand with thick rubber bands a method used to resist the action of dye coloursYadagiri Rebba 43 a weft ikat artisan has through training learned to work with pastel colours a tougher task than working with bold opaque shades which are relatively simpler to weave as the colours are easily distinguishableNext Padma scoots behind the charkha and winds yarn on the bobbin a cylinder spindle on which yarn is wound for the warp or vertical plane of the fabric The couple belongs to Telanganarsquos traditional weaving community called PadmashaliGajamrsquos modest home like that of other artisans Kundagatla Raju Karimikonda Venkatesham Prasad and Anumula Saidamma has a compact kitchen while the largest expanse is constructed around the loom dyeing unit and charkha setup Modern inventions like a sewing machine and television are customary as are framed photos of members of family and deities lining the quicklimewashed wallsGajamrsquos day begins at 7 am hersquos at work till 6 pm Smaller weaving jobs take 15 days the more complex ones take up to a monthandahalf to finish he says pulling out printouts of preparatory design graphs shared by the brand Dressed in a boardroomapproved checked white shirt he grabs hold of the corner of his Madras check lungi to hasten his stride and gestures to us to follow him to an alley behind his home where ldquostreet warpingrdquo is underway Outside weaver homes yarn is removed from the warping wheel and tied between two poles to stretch and check the tangles Thick rubber bands are inserted between the threads into the warp to make it easy to trace the entangled threadsAshwini ikat artisan Kundagatla Rajursquos wife involves herself with preloom duties Handloom work usually involves the entire family so even if a woman doesnrsquot sit at the loom she will be part of the allied workforce The Fourth All India Handloom Census 201920 revealed that 72 per cent of Indiarsquos handloom weavers are femaleCircumstances says Gajam led him to quit school after class 5 but he had made sure that his children didnrsquot His son has an MBA and his daughter is at college He says of his wife ldquoI taught Padma to work with ikat but whether or not my kids wish to follow the family tradition is up to them The 55yearold has spent the last 40 years including six at Aadyam warping ikat His father and guru was an expert in the coveted Telia Rumal a double ikat weave Financial conditions pushed the family to migrate to Navsari in Gujarat in the 1960s They spent a decade there before returning to Puttapaka home built in 1986Half an hour away in Choutuppal we are at the workshop of Yadagiri Rebba 43 a weft ikat artisan Rebba is his surname but because ldquoYadagiri is a common name call me Rebbardquo he urges He works out of a oneroom space with his mother and wife but it seems big enough to house a hand loom floor desk and a nook for bubbling cauldrons of dyes ldquoItrsquos a given that the artisanrsquos wife has to help otherwise itrsquos not considered a happy marriagerdquo Kamarapu chips in with a laugh hopefully challenging the patriarchy in Indiarsquos handicraft industry where the hero work of weaving gets precedence over preandpostloom work which is critical and often performed by womenA finished Pochampally weft silk ikat sareeDressed in a bright pink ikat shirt over an orange veshti dhoti Rebba stands as a symbol of change ldquoFor the handwoven sector to survive purana thinking and designs must end My father owned a warping unit and I began working with weft ikat in 1996 straight after class 10 From then to now not much has changed no new innovations in how artisans approach patterns or colours We must upgrade if we are to thriverdquo Rebba saysSaksena nods ldquoArtisans have an inherent sense of design I donrsquot think you can learn that at fashion schools they live and breathe it What does not work in their favour is how the market pushes them in all directions leading either to simplifying the craft because itrsquos an easy and cheap sell or replicating popular designs for the local marketrdquoItrsquos been three years since Rebba partnered with Aadyam Since he says he has managed to polish his dyeing skills at their training sessions and learned to work with Indigo and AZOfree colours ldquoI used to work with bright acid colours Now I am an expert at mixing pastel shades Though the first five months were difficult I am now perfectrdquo he beams Rebbarsquos experience is one Saksena has witnessed with most ikat artisans Their preference for deep dark opaque colours had to be challenged ldquoItrsquos easier to weave a darker colour palette since you can easily distinguish the yarn while weaving Design interventions like subtle woven patterns or softer pastel shades demand mature skills and also require a lot more effort from the artisanrdquo Saksena addsThough Pochampally is a name that is generally used for all ikat that comes from Telangana artisans in the smaller surrounding mandals around big daddy Pochampally say in unison ldquoItrsquos all about the namerdquo Even as neighbouring weaving clusters like Choutuppal offer better designs fighting the perception battle is tough ldquoIt can get dishearteningrdquo rues RebbaGajamrsquos village is historically known for its double ikatmdashone of the most complicated to produce because here warp and weft are resisttied before weaving so that the pattern interlocks and emerges once woven on the loom This process is the beating heart of the Telia weave ldquoBut it continues to be marketed and sold under Pochampally ikatsrdquo Gajam says with a shrug Telia Rumal a unique tiedye technique that uses oil to treat the yarn emerged in the 19th century in Andhrarsquos coastal town of Chirala From here it was exported to Africa and Arabia and worn as a keffiyeh head scarfs Its fame and fortune ensured it was widely adopted by Padmashalis who continued its practice in various parts of Telanganamdashwhile the craft became almost extinct in Chirala In 2020 it secured a GI tag as Puttapaka Telia Rumal largely thanks to the efforts of master weaver Padma Shri Gajam Govardhana who in the late rsquo70s brought the craft back to his village Puttapaka some 240 kms from ChiralaPochampally ikat has turned into this collective term like Banaras silk or Gadwal saree ldquoItrsquos the obvious development seen with most GIappointed arts and craftsrdquo observes Saksena ldquoIt is organic for craft to get displaced when weavers migrate to neighbouring villages as the land is cheaper Itrsquos also true of Banaras silks today itrsquos mainly practiced in bordering areas like Ramnagar rather than in BanarasrdquolsquoIkat is a knowledge stream not just a skillrsquoSatish N Poludas recounts his experience of working with Pochampally ikat and why its making is more than just skilled labourSatish PoludasOne of the first textiles that Satish Nagendra Poludas worked with after graduating from NID in Ahmedabad was the Pochampally ikat After an introduction to handspun cotton however his path veered away ldquoI got interested in desi cotton growing it developing technology for spinning and working with various clustersrdquo says the lead at Kora Design Collaborative Headquartered in Hyderabad the design and research practice is focused at the grassroot ldquoThe emphasis is on domestic production and the local economy which enhances community spirit relationships and wellbeingrdquo Poludas explains Presently their work is focused in Bihar Jharkhand Orissa Bengal and Andhra PradeshPoludas recently conducted a fiveday introductory workshop on ikat for students of the School of Architecture at Christ University in Bengaluru The idea he says was to get them to pay attention to the intricacies of one of Indiarsquos oldest crafts and respect the people keeping it alive The students were taught how to build their own looms followed by a lesson on resist dyeing Next theyrsquod visit weaving clusters in Koyyalagudem and Pochampally ldquoI wanted them to see the craft more as a knowledge stream than a skillrdquo he adds