The new thinner malkha sarees, just a few of them, will be on sale for the first time at the Kala Ghoda Festival

Hope to see some textile enthusiasts at the Textile Seminar organized by the Department of Fine Arts,
Stella Maris College, Chennai, on February 12 & 13. I will be presenting a paper, Malkha: Weaving a vision on the first day.

.... Our annual appearance at KGF coming up soon!

Research

"Indian per capita GDP declined steadily between 1600 and 1871. As British living standards increased from the mid-seventeenth century, India fell increasingly behind. Whereas in 1600, Indian per capita GDP was more than half the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.".. say Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta in their 2009 paper. What we can extrapolate from their thesis is that the making of cotton textiles played a substantial role in India's prosperity. And there are many aspects of this topic that remain to be delved into. Look forward to the research of current and future textile scholars!

Golak Khandual's block print designs for us are all botanical drawings. This one, in the smaller indigo version, is of the castor plant.

 ... here it is in red & yellow

... and here is the tridax in red/black. The reds are alizarin, a non-toxic dye derived from coal tar, all others are vegetable origin, including the indigo. These prints will be available at the Kala Ghoda Festival, Mumbai [first 5 days]

Malkha spinners & weavers bonus

This time of year at the Sankranthi festival  we pay an annual bonus to malkha weavers and spinners, based on how much they produce.Spinners who are paid Rs 120 per kg are given a bonus of Rs 30 per kg, and weavers who are paid Rs 23-25 per metre are paid a bonus of Rs 3 per metre. The highest weaving bonus of Rs 6416.7 was paid to M Satyanarayana of Sircilla who wove 2138.9 metres during 2012. 38 hand-spinners have together spun over 2000 kg of yarn, and been paid around Rs 60000. For some this is a part-time activity, which is why the quantities are low. Karuna, our star spinner has spun 238 kg and would have done more if she had not been employed for a few days to teach new recruits by DCYT.

This year thanks to our inclusion under the handloom category by the Ministry of Textiles, we have also been able to obtain the yarn subsidy of Rs 10 per kg for malkha weavers who have Weaver ID cards. We are helping others to get the cards, and next year we hope to access the Rs 20 subsidy from the Government of Andhra Pradesh in place of the Central Government's Rs 10.