The malkha film

The film crew who is shooting the malkha film includes Saravanakumar of Ecotone who has shot the beautiful pictures on our website. His usual field of action is wild life photography: he is one of the tiny group of Indian wild life photographers. He edited the highly acclaimed 'Wild Dog Diaries' and his work is often featured in National Geographic magazine. The film will be directed by Ipshita Maitra, a theatre and film director, and produced by Anand Ramachandran, who describes himself thus: 'Humorist. Game designer. Gaming columnist. Comics creator. Gamer dad'.

The team will be shooting at the Malkha stall at Dastkar's Nature Bazar, IGNCA, Janpath, Delhi on the evening of October 23 and the next morning, so all of you who want to speak your piece about malkha please use the opportunity to broadcast your views.

Harry Rivett-Carnac was sent to India by the colonial government in 1867 as 'Cotton Commissioner for the Central Provinces and the Berars'. At that time this area stretching eastwards from Nagpur was one of the most productive cotton textile regions of the country. Originally ruled by the Nizam of Hyderabad, it was wrested from him by Curzon [the Nizam was compensated by an empty British title 'Grand Commander of the Bath'..."Gave Curzon Berar" was his bitter comment].

Rivett-Carnac zealously set about his task of emptying the region of cotton through improved rail and telegraph. The result is chronicled in Laxman D Satya's Cotton and Famine in Berar: 1850-1900. In the course of his duties Rivett-Carnac as is the wont of the 19th century European official, meticulously recorded his observations which are available in his Report on the Operations of the Cotton Department for the Year 1867. In the Report he quotes from another Report, this one on the Assessment of the Land Revenue of the Chimmoor Pergunnah in the Chanda District, December 1864:

"An important article of trade in Chimmoor which finds its way to the weekly fair, and which, strange to say, has not been much affected by the great rise in the price of the raw material, is the manufacture of coarse cloth, which is entirely in the hands of the Dhers, who spin the thread and work the looms. The cloth is coarse and strong, and is in great favour among the Kunbees of Berar, hard-working practical men, whom the comparatively flimsy, but smart looking English-made cloth does not suit..."

The author goes on to detail the number of stalls at the Jamoorghotta weekly market; of which 572 of the 1424 deal in cloth, yarn and cotton. Of these 572, by far the largest segment is the 350 Dhers selling 'coarse cloth of their own manufacture'. The market itself he says '....it must be remembered is but one of the many places to which the peasantry flock for the cloth made by the Dhers...' He reckons the 'annual consumption of cotton in these Provinces to be not less than 60,000 bales'

Dhers, of course, were not weavers by caste. Caste weavers would not make their own yarn whereas the Dhers seem to have ginned and carded the cotton themselves and woven the cloth too. I wonder if they figure at all in our estimates of the scale of the Indian cotton textile industry of that time. If there are 350 sellers of the coarse stuff at one of the many weekly markets of the area, besides 110 'Rungarees, dyers, selling stamped and dyed cloth, native, 25 shops selling expensive turbans, dhotees, shawls &c of native manufacture, 5 Koshtees, weavers of finer native cloth, and 5 Salewurs selling coloured cloth for women besides 25 wholesale traders of cotton and 25 sellers of cotton thread' what would have been the total annual local production of cloth? [There are also 5 'shops selling English cloth &c']. And how many families would have been employed in the spinning, dyeing, printing, weaving, transport and trade? And what would have been the value of the local textile industry?

"Your cotton has been amongst the most comfortable I have ever worn" writes Prabha Patodia from Mumbai, having bought "almost all your prints that you had with you" at the Kala Ghoda show in February of this year, and asking when we were going to be in Mumbai again. Indeed the prints designed by Sutanu continue to be a huge hit at all our public appearances. Particularly the black butterflies, which are now teamed with black malkha fabric-dyed in Kutch.
Since we will not be in Mumbai till the next Kala Ghoda festival in February 2011, we'll send Prabha pictures of the new prints expected soon, and supply her through courier. Though much of our business is through wholesale to retailers we enjoy the direct contact with users at exhibitions or through the mail.

October is going to be a busy month for malkha. Melange, Mumbai, is to hold a fashion show of garments made of malkha designed by Mayank Mansingh Kaul, Peter D'Ascoli and others of the Afterhours group. At the same time the Nature Bazar in Delhi will be on, first for the Commonwealth Games and later for the general public. In this there will be two malkha stalls, one for garments & fabric and the other for household goods designed and sold by the Crafts Council of Delhi.

At the malkha stall we will hesitantly introduce indigo prints on malkha, hesitantly because while we are confident of the fastness of indigo yarn dyeing, we don't know how fast printing with indigo will be. But the prints are certainly beautiful. We have also tried out Ajrakh prints on malkha, which are also lovely. Unfortunately the Kutch printers are still using synthetic indigo which doesn't have the brilliance of the real thing.

Stories from Chinnur: 2

Kunasamudram steel.. the legendary material is said to have made chisels for stonemasons of the Great Pyramid. Damascene swords were made from it in the middle ages and the wootz technique copied in Europe. As we walk from village to village around Chinnur 20 years ago we see the blackened places that define slagheaps on the banks of the local cheruvu, where steel was smelted till the early years of the 20th century. Not only the steel itself was a technological marvel, it was smelted in small earthen crucibles that were able to withstand the temperatures that melted the iron ore out of the metal-bearing rock.

It was the Mannevarlu who had been steelmakers for centuries. The current generation had seen it in their childhoods, but had never practiced it themselves. It was done at night, they said, on moonless nights so that you could see the molten steel flow. Iron-bearing rock was scattered on the ground around the stream-beds. Small earthen furnaces were loaded with charcoal made from local hard woods. Hide bellows, foot-pumped, raised the furnace temperature. And there you had it, the highest quality steel ever made, no mining scars, no displacement, independent professionals, a highly skilled artisan technique.

The Mannevarlu now eke out a living as agricultural labour, their cynical employers giving them part wages in liquor they distill from raw sugar. Some are employed by the Silk Board to mate the tassar moths, something only the Mannevarlu seem to be able to accomplish.

Srinivas and I walk through the forest with Sarpanch of Kusnepally, on our way to try out, yet again, steel-smelting with the Mannevarlu. The Sarpanch is of the Devangula jati, a tassar weaver. He scans the trees as we walk, and darts off now and then to pick a wild tassar cocoon. The stronger ones among the wild tassar moths, he tells us, were able to force their way out of the cocoon without biting through the silk, so you got the thread all in one length. Today the cultivated insects have lost this ability. The cocoons have to be boiled to kill the grubs before they bite their way out, cutting the silk to bits.

The Nature Bazar is still on in Bangalore till the 15th. This year there have been better arrangements, particularly for rain, with galleries protecting most of the stalls, and boards underfoot over most of the puddles. And a good thing too, as we've had some really heavy downpours, which Bangaloreans say are unusual. Then there have been some really charming performances by the girl acrobat-dancers of Orissa and the Lambada women of Sandur, Bellary. The Rajasthani puppeteers too not only sell puppets but do little shows now and then.

Most of the stalls, including ours, have done well this year. Our great satisfaction has been to have customers who have bought malkha before, loved wearing it and have come back for more. There are also people who like the cloth but bemoan the lack of good tailors in Bangalore. And one unfortunate experience: a customer who said he was given short length last year. This must have been cut by our helpers from the units, since the Malkha staff are trained to cut an inch or so extra. Of course we offered to take it back.

All Bazar pictures look alike, but I'm putting up a 28 second video anyway. Fellini its not, but you get a sense of what its like selling malkha at a bazar - showing the fabric, measuring, cutting, billing, packing, taking the money & returning change, all at top speeds and in a cramped space.