Entering the handloom weavers’ neighbourhood at Pasalapudi village in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh is an unforgettable experience. Take a left turn and a quick right to the narrow concrete street that stretches straight ahead. On either side are neatly organised houses with sloping roofs of thatch or tiles and spacious verandas that open into the street. Each veranda has a handloom, sometimes two, and it is here that the rhythmic movement of hand and the rest of the body and the simultaneous woody clickety-clack of the loom shuttle, as it carries the weft across the warp, leave an indelible impression on the visitor.
A similar scene plays out in village after village in this rice bowl of Andhra Pradesh, where the mighty Godavari, the lush paddies and a string of rice mills form the backdrop for a handloom weaving tradition that goes back many centuries. Thousands of families continue to weave even today, and this is in no small measure on account of the right climate (for instance, high humidity), long-standing and intricate social and economic networks, and the community’s considerable innovative and adaptive capacities.
While the region is best known for the Uppada Jamdani sari, it is the medium-skill, fine-count cotton weaving that forms the backbone of its strength and identity. It is also a world of surprises as it is of many contrasts — of the high-value, high-skill Uppadas that exclusive designer labels have promoted aggressively even as many looms go silent because medium- and low-skilled weavers are leaving their traditional profession. There are weavers’ cooperatives as in Hasanabad that have thrived because of dynamic leadership and a strong belief in the handloom, but others like the one in Dulla have fallen upon bad times on account of bad management practices and exit of weavers.
Velasawaram has, over the past four years, made a significant shift to weaving plain silk saris from being an exclusive cotton-handloom weaving village. “Traders from Bengaluru provide us the silk warps and buy back the saris,” one weaver says. “We don’t know where the saris go finally and don’t know how long this work will last,” he continues. He is not worried, he says, because he will move back to cotton if the wind blows that way again. The trends and demands of the market might change, but he is confident his skills will not.
Images: Pankaj Sekhsaria
Text: Pankaj Sekhsaria and Latha Tummuru
Spring in the steps: A length of cloth emerges with the hand, eye and feet striking a rhythm with the loom.
Magic fingers: Deft hands work the loom at Pasalpudi village in East Godavari district.
House of cloth: A weaver’s home at Adiwarpupeta.
Silk road: Silk yarn being stretched out at Velasawaram before putting it on the loom. Velasawaram is riding a new trend rapidly spreading across the weaving communities of East Godavari — a shift from cotton to weaving of silk saris for traders mainly from Bangalore.
Winding up: Only women wind the bobbin that eventually goes into the shuttle for the weft of the fabric. Work apace at Pasalapudi.
Colour code: The yarn poised to become cloth at a loom at Pasalapudi.
Border art: Spinning out a sari at Angara village.
Taut threads: A weaver uses a warping drum at Edida village.
Warp and weft: Cotton yarn on the warping drum, one of the key pre-loom activities that is vital to the handloom weaving process, at Angara.
Sketching a pattern: A ‘dobby’ contraption, which helps create intricate surface patterns on cloth, at a weaver’s home at Pasalapudi. Mechanical innovations enrich handloom weaving.