It had been a long day, it has been a long day everyday the past few years. Today I worked on one of the patterns my father had created. Weaving was life. Much as it is mine, it was my father’s and his too. My son follows suit. There has never been a time that I could point to and say that that was when I began weaving. It was in us, deeply embedded.
Vivid memories of the days past dance across of my mind. The days were different though. There wasn’t an India and a Pakistan.
We used to move around, within Kutch and Sindh then, selling wares. It seemed easy then. Weaving wool for the Rabari and local communities, we wove cotton for the others too. Then, in 1995 came acrylic yarn. It was produced here and easy to source. Being cheap, it sold well.
The tide shifted in 2001. The demand for natural material grew. At the same time, industries surfaced within Gujarat.
People shifted. People moved to factories for the better pay and work hours. We weavers were now in a tight spot. With labor gone, the pace of work picked up slowly. As I see the stability in the past five years, work, home and children in college I find myself at ease, a sense of tranquility.
