Online retail spins a revival yarn for Ikats of Pochampally

On a breezy, gorgeous Sunday morning, I set out for

Pochampally

– a good 50km from Hyderabad. There is a bite to (in) the air, but the mild sun softens the chill. The city is stirring back to life and thankfully the traffic was endurable.

The

Pochampally Handloom Weavers

Cooperative Society has 915 members. According to its president, B Vasudev, there are 3,000 weavers in the village today. The narrative, a few years ago, though, was totally different. As Andhra Pradesh went through the throes of bifurcation and the state-owned Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society (

APCO

) – its biggest buyer — stopped procuring merchandise, large quantities of unsold fabric piled up. Unemployed weavers, Vasudev shared, either took to farming or moved to Hyderabad to eke out a living, driving auto-rickshaws or working as security guards.

From 2,000 working looms, the number dwindled to an abysmal 500. It was at this time that some enterprising young men from the village turned to online retail. In 2016, the first attempt at online merchandising was made. This reshaped the storyline for Pochampally’s

Ikat

. Business grew by 100% — from Rs 5.29 crore in 2014 to Rs 7.38 crore in 2017. More and more young men got into the online business.

Recently, GST affected the trade, but it is still a happy scenario. Business is booming and the Pochampally society is buzzing with activity. Construction of a new, spacious, air-conditioned showroom is on in full swing.

Beaming with pride, Vasudev recounts how reams of Ikat was sourced from Pochampally for the making of the superhit movie, Baahubali.

Ikat, referred to as pagdu bandhu or chitku in Telugu, derives its meaning from the Malaysian-Indonesian term mang-ikat, which means to tie, knot or bind, and the magic of Ikat is about tying and dyeing the warp and weft before weaving.

At the house of K Dasarath, a society member, I noticed how women applied ash or starch on their fingers to separate and count each yarn, which is then knotted as per the design. There are almost 15 stages of marking, dyeing and knotting before the yarn is spun on a charkha and wound on a bobbin. It is then handed over to the weaver.

It takes a weaver about 15 days to weave a double Ikat sari; a single Ikat gets done in four to five days. Though the government has given frame looms to weavers, as they are more efficient and easy to work on, weavers prefer the traditional pit looms.

When I paid 76-year-old Ganji Buchiah a visit, he was weaving a double Ikat sari in spun silk. He said it takes a fortnight to weave a sari on his pit loom for which he gets paid Rs 6,000. Ganji admitted that of late, the demand for Ikat saris has shot up and so have the wages.

G Srinu, a young and a very accomplished weaver, took me around Puttapaka — known for double Ikat weaving with warp and weft design. It has over 700 looms. Renowned weavers Gajjam Govardhan and Gajjam Anjaiah, both national award recipients, belong to the village, and several weavers work for them. Here, weavers prefer to work independently and not under the umbrella of a society. Private weavers work for master weavers or retail individually.

Pochampally Handloom Weavers Society

claims to be the first in India to register for the Silk Mark. It was granted the Geographical Indication in 1999. As demand for double Ikats is growing, more and more weavers are veering towards weaving these. Also, it is more lucrative as weavers make anywhere between Rs 8,000 and Rs 30,000 per sari, depending on the design. Ten years ago, I had not seen so many double Ikats on the looms of Pochampally. They may not be as expensive as a Patan Patola, but are surely works of art.

(The writer is an author whose book, Threads of Hope: The Magical Weaves of Andhra Pradesh, won the Incredible India Award in 2012)


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