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In the Kalakshetra Weaving Centre in Tiruvanmiyur near Madras, you can choose your own colours, border, body and pallav for a Conjeevaram silk. It was a Kalakshetra saree that Indira Gandhi wore to attend the banquet given in her honour by the French President Francois Mitterand in Paris. Pupil Jayakar, the handicraft Czarina of India in the 1980s, frequently wore Kalakshetra sarees, in her role of cultural ambassador to other parts of the world. Before you get excited about designing your own silk saree, let us consider the history of this famous Weaving Centre. The 1857 First War of Indian Independence (known to the British as the Sepoy Mutiny) marked a great change in the cultural world of our nation. The industrialised British and their supporters in the Indian mill industry even had English girls landing in India to work in the mills. Similarly the designs also underwent a sea change and many fabrics/sarees began to come out with odd British designs, like that of the emblems of the British Royal family and British borders. But by the 1920s, there was a move to curtail this invasion of foreign culture into our weaving industry. The spirit of nationalism, led by Mahatma Gandhi, gave a fillip to our handloom industry. At this juncture, the pioneers in the resurrection of Indian weaving, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya and Rukmini Arundale, started the Centre that used only vegetable dyes, Indian fabrics and Indian designs. Many old antique sarees and masterpieces in other Indian fabrics were collected, so that the future generations would not forget their heritage. The first loom in the Kalakshetra Weaving Centre was set up in 1937, just a year after College of Fine Arts was founded by Rukmini Devi for resuscitating Bharatanatyam. The weaving institution was started with one loom in a thatched shed in the gardens of the Theosophical Society in Madras. It was inaugurated by V.V. Giri, the then Minister of Industries, in Madras Presidency. The main aim of the Centre was to revive the beautiful old patterns of South Indian sarees with authentic traditional textiles. R. Venkataraman, former President and present Chairman of Kalakshetra Foundation, states: "The Kalakshetra saree teaches us that colour, like dance, needs balance to be beautiful." One fashion designer comments, "The reason for the success of this Weaving Centre is the uncompromising attitude of institution to fundamentals. The type of weaving that this craft demands is laborious and time consuming. Wholly hand-crafted, it needs a minimum of two weavers to each loom." The impact of the Kalakshetra textile on the general public was so great that soon many looms had to be added to meet the demand. Many silk saree patterns were reproduced in cotton, which brought traditional charm into everyday wear. During the World War II, when zari production came to a standstill, yellow silk thread was substituted and sarees were woven fully in silk without zari. The present head of the famous weaving institute, Shakuntala Ramani, has written a number of scholarly books on the history of a craft, that survives even today, because of its excellent workmanship. Over the years, however, the Kalakshetra saree became increasingly rare. Ramani says that owing to various reasons, the unit could not produce more than two saree a month. The shop of the weaving centre known as Kalankar, keeps "government" hours and you would have to a special commitment to make your designer saree, to take that long and winding road to it, at Thruvanmiyur near Madras. Well, once decided, reach the Kalankar shop by about 10 a.m. The manager in charge of the weaving section will help you to make decision. The only requirement is that you should choose the border, pallu and the body (not colour) out of the 130-odd designs the centre has — based on the famous antique sarees collected by the late Rukmini Devi Arundale and the centre. The designs, which you can see in the design book and silk facsimiles maintained by the centre, range from a deep green shimmering silk with mango border to a red saree with check designs with rudraksha border. If you so desire, you can combine these two and have a deep green saree, with red check design with rudraksha alternating with the mangoes in the border. In fact, the choice is very varied. If you have abandoned wearing sarees due to fashion or other reasons, you can have your salwar kameez material woven in colours and designs you want. The Kalakshetra Weaving Centre uses only the best of silk and natural dyes and the price of "your" designed saree is about Rs 9000 or 200 US dollars. Depending on the intricacy of the design and your position in the queue, the orders take from six months to one year to materialise. — MF |
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For
those who would swear by the saree, how about designing one for
yourself? Add to your wardrobe a saree made of the most exotic of
silks — Conjeevaram, with natural dyes, and made to designs of your
own choice.