The Kala Ghoda exposure in Mumbai is bearing fruit... Jayashree & Anita from the Maati store in Powai have been in touch, saying that customers have been saying good things about malkha. Maati is planning to try retailing malkha on the basis of these reports, and we hope to get into a long-term partnership. It would be the first retail partnership... oops, typed 'partnershop' by mistake, though that might be a good term to use for this arrangement.

Arti of OMO in Bandra has also been spreading the word, and we had an excited call from another potential customer who's planning to come to Hyderabad to look at the stuff.

Two small shows coming up this month in Bangalore, here is the invite... oops again, no copy-paste facility. The 1st is at DESI Basanavnagudi, tel 26725514 from 11th to 14th, & the 2nd at Julie Kagti's, Hatworks Boulevard tel 41327515 from 19th to 22nd.

It's a struggle to maintain the health of the soil, of farmers, of customers and the environment by avoiding chemicals in cotton, and of course in food crops. The harmful effects of chemicals were only understood after their use became widespread, and the warnings of early whistle-blowers like Rachel Carson [author of Silent Spring] were by and large brushed aside. Now we seem to be ready to accept and propagate Genetic Modification which could be even more dangerous than chemical use. Yesterday we heard the depressing news from our friend Dr G V Ramanjaneyulu of Centre for Sustainable Agriculture that much of the organic cotton in the country has been contaminated by BT cotton, and that as a result some cotton growing regions of the country and some certifying agencies have been blacklisted by international certifying agencies.

This just goes to show that once the genie of GM is let out of the bottle it is impossible to contain, and who knows what the long-term effects will be?

In the malkha process, we are gradually working our way towards using cotton that is neither GM nor a product of chemical intensive agriculture. Rather than have an outside agency certifying the cotton we use we would prefer to create if possible chains of transparency between cotton growers, textile producers and cloth users through regular communication.

malkha at kala ghoda

Kala Ghoda is a lovely event to be part of. There's song, dance & drama as part of the street festival, something that Western countries seem to encourage more than ours. There are two sections to the bazaar, one in which participants pay a commercial rent, and the other which is managed by Concern India on a non-profit basis for NGOs and craft groups. Due to the number of NGOs wanting to take part and the limited number of stalls available, Concern gives the stalls only for half the festival period to each. So we got to introduce malkha to the Mumbai public at a very reasonable cost, through for only 5 days. The downside of Mumbai shows is the octroi charged on even handloom fabrics, though they're supposed to be tax free all over the country.

As usual the deep indigo sold out in a couple of days. Sutanu's prints did well, and its interesting how each region in India has its very different tastes with regard to colour. Chetana boutique and Sonya Khan of Yellow Leaf, buying for Khazana, were among our wholesale buyers.

My amateur efforts to do a small video on my camera invariably end up with several seconds of shoes & street surface, so I'll spare you those, here instead is a picture of our stall. Hope our technical friend Pramod will send me one of Nandita Das at our stall, looking gorgeous as ever.

There are now 8 malkha centres working, 4 in Andhra and 4 in other places. Wish we could get regular news from the ones in other states, but communication is not their strong point... we'll share news as we get it.

We're all packed for the Kala Ghoda festival. We have about almost 3000 metres of malkha from our 4 Andhra centres, about half of it in the natural undyed which remains our most popular fabric. The rest is natural dyed or block printed in Sutanu's prints.

The organizers have given us a 5-day slot, from the 6th to 10th of Feb. The venue remains open from 11 in the morning to 10 pm. More later from Mumbai...

Last year when we began production of malkha at one of our new centres, the first production that came off the looms was 500 metres of very loosely woven bleached fabric. We rejected it for sale, and have been selling it off extremely cheaply as defective stuff. Just to try it out we made some nightwear out of it, and found it to be really really comfortable for the summer ...

Mayank Mansingh Kaul and 5 other young designers have banded together to open a store called Afterhours, in Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi. Mayank has seen our fabric and loves it, and we have just sent samples so that the others can see it too... we hope they will like it and have a special malkha show in their new shop, which is opening in a few days, on January 19.

Shalini Subramaniam of Plantation House [Bangalore]writes: "I'm happy to let you know that my store's open and everyone who's visiting the store loves your fabric!!"

Now we have to work on coordinating production and market... we have a huge demand for indigo and red, but we're getting more undyed kora and less of the colours... we're working on it!
And Satish's new loom design is already in production and on order, it is simple but beautiful and is going to be a huge hit in the market.

This month is going to be a busy one for malkha. Firstly we had to move our Hyderabad office and are now in temporary quarters with the prospect of another move soon. Then, preparations are on for the Kala Ghoda Festival in Mumbai early next month, friends, please pass the word round. We had a visit from the Khazana team and were happy to introduce them to the malkha process before the Mumbai show, we hope Khazana will become a regular customer. Sonya Khan of Yellow Leaf is their designer and is used to working with khadi.

Deliveries of orders have been delayed because of transport disruptions in Andhra [both for and against Telengana activists protesting], of yarn to and from the dyeing centres and of the fabric. We apologize to our customers.
... and a peaceful New Year to all