Tiruveedula Gantayya, a 46-year-old craftsman, bought 50 abandoned handlooms in the past three years from the weavers of Pedana and surrounding villages only to dismantle them to make interior decorative items.
He is one of the four handloom craftsmen engaged in making handlooms with an expensive teak wood in the textile belt of Pedana in Krishna district.
“Being a craftsman, I never expected that I would purchase handlooms, which I made earlier, to dismantle them. I could not resist myself from buying the abandoned handlooms as the weavers started selling them to be used for fixing bathroom doors which I cannot digest,” says Mr. Gantayya.
In the past five years, hundreds of handlooms were sold by weavers to dismantle them for various purposes in and around Pedana town, with the advent of a screen printing method in the textile art of Kalamkari that attracted weavers with an offering of lucrative daily earning.
The technology has tempted hundreds of families to quit the traditional profession of weaving, and later pushed them to a state of unemployment as it began struggling to gain acceptance in the market.
There are only four handloom craftsmen who make the handlooms in and around Pedana town -- Gantayya, Veenam Venkanna, B. Shyamala Rao (Kappaladoddi) and Rahmatullah Khan.
“The least price at which I had bought each handloom is ₹1000, and this stands testimony to the declining art of weaving and the desperation of the weaver. I am using the teak wood of the dismantled loom for making chairs and tables. Much of the wood is used for making cots,” says Mr. Gantayya. Now, the new handloom costs between ₹10,000 and ₹12,000.
Veenam Prasad, an assistant to craftsman Venkanna, has told The Hindu : “We have bought dozens of handlooms which are used to make windows, cots, and interior material. However, the stock is sold by September-end.”
Stony silence
When asked, the families that had disposed of their handlooms in Pedana, Veerabhadrapuram and Brahmapuram areas declined to speak on it. On a condition of anonymity, some elders belonging to the weaving families have observed: “In our society, selling the handloom is considered a shame. No family wants to speak on it. In the past, the abandoned handlooms were either sold to the needy weavers or preserved.”
The ‘wooden beam’, a part of the handloom set, is being used as a ‘wrapper’ in the chemical printing units. The State government’s financial assistance of ₹24,000 per year for the family that works on the handloom makes weavers to stop selling handlooms as of now.
