I used to wonder what it was about the traditional Gadwal saree that made it so much more expensive than other dressy cotton sarees with zari on silk borders and pallavs. One day about 25 years ago Nazeer Kamal came to visit. He was a powerloom operator from Karnataka. His father had been a handloom weaver in Kurnool and had migrated from there to Sholapur when textile mills were set up in Sholapur the 1950s. Nazeer and his brother lived there as children, and moved to Bellary when the mills closed in the 1980s. Starting as an operator in a powerloom concern, he joined with other operators to make a union and to buy their own powerlooms. Now Nazeer was interested in technique, and what could be done on handlooms that was not possible on mechanized looms.

I opened my cupboard and showed him my heritage sarees, among which were the Gadwals I had inherited from mother and aunts. Nazeer was fascinated, and pointed out the specialty of the Gadwal technique: unlike other sarees in which cotton and silk combine, in the pallav of the Gadwal saree the cotton warp as well as the weft changes from cotton to silk. While it is a simple matter to change the weft, in order to change the warp each of the thousands of single cotton yarns of the warp must be twisted by hand onto a silk warp yarn, for each pair of sarees.

Francis Carnac Brown, British cotton planter in Malabar, testifying before a Parliamentary Committee in 1846 says "The story of cotton in India is not half told, how it was systematically depressed from the earliest date that American cotton came into competition with it about the year 1786, how for 40 or 50 years thereafter one half of the crop was taken in kind as revenue, the other half by the sovereign merchant at a price much below the market price of the day which was habitually kept down for the purpose, how the cotton farmer's plough and bullock were taxed, the Churkha taxed, the bow taxed and the loom taxed, how inland custom houses were posted in and around every village on passing which cotton on its way to the Coast was like every other produce taxed afresh; how it paid export duty both in a raw state and in every shape of yarn, of thread, cloth or handkerchief, in which it was possible to manufacture it; how the dyer was taxed and the dyed cloth taxed, plain in the loom, taxed a second time in the dye vats, how Indian piece goods were loaded in England with a prohibitory duty and English piece goods were imported into India at an ad valorem duty of 2 1/2 per cent. It is my firm conviction that the same treatment would have long since converted any of the finest countries in Europe into wilderness. But the Sun has continued to give forth to India its vast vivifying rays, the Heavens to pour down upon the vast surface its tropical rains. These perennial gifts of the Universal Father it has not been possible to tax."

Revenue & taxes were levied by the East India Company.

Mayank's clothes are really nice, simple & classic with beautiful detailing. Besides the malkha ...shirts? Kurtas? in the show he also has one made from naturally coloured cotton... to dye for, excuse the pun. Taamara also has lovely leather from Bengal, with new designs of hand bags and chappals in the traditional stamping & colouring technique, a specialty of Bengal.

Meanwhile we're facing hurdles in matching malkha production to orders. While there's a long waiting list for the indigo, there have been problems in getting the yarn to the dyers and getting it back to the weaving centres. But there's plenty of the kora coming in as the new units step up their production. And Satish's new dented stripe design has begun to come off the looms, will be first shown at the Sampoorn exhibtion in Bangalore in June.

May 12: Just added 2 pics of Mayank's malkha kurtas, taken during the show by the cameraman from a local mag, You & I

Mayank tells us that there's a new store in Hyderabad called Taamara, which is holding s small preview of his work this week-end, including 3 malkha garments.

Meanwhile Ipshita Maitra is developing the story idea for the film, and one of Mayank's colleagues, Peter, is planning a shoot of his garments in malkha production centres.

Delhi Crafts Council is working towards an exhibition of finished products in malkha for household & furnishing, with different traditional artisanal work on malkha. They held a workshop with the Sirali group in Jharkhand recently and came up with these lovely cushion covers.

The last picture is of one of the Sirali group during the workshop.

Talks on Ethical Textiles were given at Reggio Emilia, Parma & Florence in Italy, on 25th, 26th and 27th March. The first one, in Reggio, was held at the Maki Pub, which serves simple meals and drinks. Maki Pub has bought all its furniture and most of its accessories from Ravinala, one of the Fair Trade organizations in Italy. David Cambioli of Altra Qualita, Deborah Lucchetti of the Clean Clothes Campaign, Michele Fantoni of INvestiRE & Uzramma of Malkha Marketing Trust spoke.

Altra Qualita imports artisan made goods - not just textiles - from the less industrialized countries. They buy khadi and malkha from Weavers´Wheel and make it into garments which they sell through their catalogue. The Clean Clothes Campaign looks into issues of exploited labour in the production/market chains of big clothing companies, shares such information with the public and attempts to influence the companies to mend their ways. INvestiRE is just at the early stages of setting up ethical clothing chain, from fabrics produced in India and Brazil, tailored in Italy by social businesses.

The audience on each occasion was drawn from the network of supporters of Ravinala and G.A.S, the Italian Ethical Consumer Group.

My Italian being limited to 'grazie' & 'buon giorno' I needed a translator. Deborah did it at the Maki Pub, Michele in Parma and Massimo, a professional translator but one who specializes in sport, in Florence. Massimo had prepared for the event by going through our website and did an excellent job.

It is tempting to see these efforts as larger and more significant than they are, nevertheless, they do represent a growing interest in promotion of local and ethical manufacture and trade.

Thanks for your comment A, glad you enjoy the blog...

Yes our site has become very static and needs to have more information, pics of fabrics from our range, prices and the details of different processes of khadi, handloom & malkha...

Here's a short version of the difference:

KHADI uses yarn spun on charkhas [ring-frames] turned by hand
HANDLOOM uses mill-spun yarn
MALKHA uses special pre-spinning processes, cutting out baling/unbaling/blowroom which the other two use

All three are woven on handlooms.

The DESI sale is meant to introduce malkha to the regular DESI customers, who are used to handloom fabrics at a lower price. We hope that once people wear malkha they will realize that it is good value!