P.S. Rangaswamy, the grand old owner of PSR, still weaves in the old-fashioned way sometimes. According to his son, R. Jagadeesh, his father began weaving at a time when there were no computer-aided designs and punched cards. “Even the motifs were painstakingly introduced by hand,” he says. That is the reason our grandmothers’ saris seemed heavier.
But that way of weaving is cumbersome and time-consuming. These days, people want lighter saris and the time it takes to weave is not a matter of consideration. “The reason the saris of those days looked different was also to do with colours. Some of them were imported but were subsequently banned. Red RB, Brown GR, a particular shade of kathiri poo violet…Even the process of dyeing and preparing the yarns for weaving were different and done by hand using age-old methods and natural ingredients. Who has the patience to spare so much time, energy and attention to one sari, he asks. “Besides, setting a loom just for one sari will make the cost prohibitive.” But PSR does receive requests to copy precious old saris. “We copy them and make them as close to the original as possible, but they are lighter and may not quite be an exact replica.
That is the reason for the common lament, “They don’t make saris like that anymore.” For Prithvi of Tharakaram, copying precious saris is not just about memories. “If you look at saris that are 80, 70 or even 40 years old now, the colours, designs and texture are just so much more alluring,” he says. Prithvi’s mother, 88-year-old Jana Mami, who set up what is one of Coimbatore’s oldest sari shops in 1948 rattles off the names of borders, weaves, colours that were all the rage when she was a bride and even earlier…In 1946, her wedding sari had a malli moggu motif with a ‘college’ border. And a Tara Shot sari was part of her trousseau too (The Tara Shot sari she shows me is the colour of melting butterscotch with a deep maroon border).
Paalum Pazham Kattu , Kaayam Pazham Kattu , Thyaga Bhumi Kattu (named after a 1942 movie), Pai-adi Kattu (mat weave), Raindrop…the names are as pretty as the motifs. Huge Yazhi motifs make up the border of one sari. “There was so much in the saris taken from temple architecture and nature,” explains Jana mami. Prithvi says that weavers are reluctant to copy old saris. “The motifs, weave, etc. are time-consuming. Only a handful of old weavers are willing to weave them. It is laborious, and the younger ones couldn’t be bothered.”
Ahalya — of the newly arrived sari place, Kanakavalli, located in a beautiful old bungalow in Race Course — also says it is not easy to replicate old saris entirely. “One has to see the sari, assess it and then set up the looms accordingly. We can make it look similar, if not exact. After all, the weaving techniques, the shades and the fluency of the weaver have changed over the years. A lot of effort goes into copying old saris because the loom will then have to be set in a certain way depending on the size of the border, the pallu and the motifs. The copying of saris we do are mostly sentiment driven. When the original sari is not wearable any more, people want it to be copied. But the effort should be economically viable. To set up a loom just for one sari is not. Of course, there are those who want it at any cost, in which case we go ahead. We had someone who brought in an exquisite sari with minute black and white checks with a solid coloured border. We copied it for them and, with their permission, also got it woven for us. It is surprising how many of these saris are so contemporary. May be it is the other way around. Those saris had an elegance and beauty that is timeless.
