The rains were on their wake. I sniffed the air and slowly made my way home, my shadow, behind me. Home was where my brothers were. I was running late for the day’s meal. They would be waiting along with my wife and children. Work had called me away for the day. I had taken the fabric we wove to a neighboring town.
I was 12 when I first began to weave. My older brother was 15, my younger brother 9. We had seen our grandfather at work, and our father and his two brothers. My grandfather used three techniques, passing down each technique to each of his three sons, until they mastered it. Eventually, my brothers and I picked up all the techniques.
Weaving brought us all together, the women of the house, the children, young and old, everyone played a role in the process. As children, we would play in school. We used to wrap bobbins, now our children do the same. We had seen a significant change in the looms as children. I remember my grandfather, one day coming home to tell us about a particular kind of loom. It was fairly large and wove a larger breath of fabric. He was amongst the first to use it. And soon we saw a shift from the smaller looms where the fabric had to be sewn together later. This was 1979.
There was a time when we worked for our uncle for a few years after which we set out on our own. Employing people, setting up shop and turning into designers in our own right. Changes too took its due course- looms, material, markets.
The local community was our market back in the day, the vast expanse of the country and beyond now. With the change in the market, the material too shifted. Lighter cottons took the place of thick.
Using the techniques handed down to us we design and create. We see the weaves and make them paint a picture before us.
Our heart lays here in Bhujodi, carrying the threads that were passed on to us, the heirs to the loom.
