Weaving magic in Varanasi

Kalpana Sunder

Sitting under the harsh light of a naked blue bulb, the handloom weaver sits in a pit, craning his neck over a loom, manipulating a mass of threads like an expert concert artist perfecting his overture. Slowly frame by frame, a paisley motif emerges on fuchsia pink silk, sourced from South India. I am in Varanasi, the centre of the country’s spiritual compass. What started as a ritual use of cotton fabrics in burial ceremonies held along the city’s ghats has expanded into an artisan industry.

According to artisans, the city’s silk weaving business began roughly in 1300 AD when many skilled Gujarati weavers migrated to Varanasi, following a massive fire. Banaras silk is mentioned in the Rig Veda and Buddhist history texts, which, together with images from the Mughal court, provide clues to its evolution. Silk-embroidered sarees have been an art form during the Mughal period in the 16th century.

To gain an insight into the intricate weaving process, a visit to the Mehta International Silk Centre helps. The Mehta family is one of the few Hindu families in the weaving business and their patterns mark a break from the Mughal-style Banarasi patterns. Here you can understand the intricacies of the process: difference between phenkua and kadhua: the technique of throwing the shuttle from end-to-end between the threads of the warp, and weaving in the threads, one by one. Mehta also makes stoles, scarves, wall hangings and bedcovers. He shows us an intricate bedcover that is not for sale and is a family heirloom — depicting the traditional nayikas.

Three generations can wear an intricately woven Banarasi saree, and it is more a family heirloom that a mother passes on to her daughter or daughter-in-law,” explains the owner’s son. The complexity of design in a Banarasi saree is of the highest order — the highest pixels. He tells us how these old-fashioned looms, which are museum exhibits in Europe, were imported from Lyon in France and are still in use in this labour-intensive industry.

The workers, mostly men, may take 10 days to weave a saree working eight hour shifts on wages as low as Rs 600 per day. If the design is complicated, then the saree may proceed at 2 inches a day and the weaver may even take three months to weave just one saree. Sarees may tell pictorial stories; the motifs on sarees are like a history book of influences — Persian and Mughal and  Hindu culture. One can find motifs like asharfi (coin-shape), gainda (marigold flower), chand-tara (moon and star), lateefa (floral bouquet), etc.

  “We always use vegetable dyes, natural dyes. They last longer and give more vivid colours,” explains Mehta. Natural dyes don’t damage the fabric either. Various varieties of Banarasi sarees are available — each different from the other —  based on the type of motif or pattern weaved on to the textile like jaamdani, tanchoi, jangla, brocade, chiffon organza, tissue, and so on.

Despite intermittent government bans on the import of cheap Chinese silk clothes threatened the existence of Varanasi’s silk industry, as the demand for the hand-woven, hand-printed and embroidered silks local weavers produced, declined in the face of less expensive imports. The recent Geographic Indication (GI) status given to Banarasi brocade means that brocade sarees made only in the mentioned districts of Varanasi, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Jaunpur, Bhadohi and Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh can be authentically identified as Banarasi saree or brocade. The Varanasi textile industry today produces a diverse range of products with traditional as well as innovative designs to cater to the contemporary market.

The nation’s top fashion designers have also come together to recreate the magic of Banarasi weaves with a contemporary twist. They work with clusters of weavers and help in reviving and sustaining this age old tradition and making sure it’s a lucrative profession.