Ethicus and Samarth are teaching women how to weave in Pollachi, Tamil Nadu

Hand in hand, the women dance the kummi around a mortar and pestle, next to a large peepal tree. As they sing, two of them smash a coconut, scattering pieces everywhere. The singing and dancing are to celebrate the completion of a 45-day weaving programme at Appachi Eco Logic Cotton, in Pollachi, Tamil Nadu.

Then, inside a well-lit hall, surrounded by the looms where they learnt about warp and weft, the 47 women wait for their viva voce. Examiners from the Weavers’ Service Centre, Salem (which comes under the Ministry of Textiles), and an examiner selected by the Union government, question them about twill weaves and yarn counts. “I could answer most questions,” says J. Benazir Banu, 23, happily. She is the newest graduate of Samarth, a skill development programme for capacity building in the textile sector.

The women cut across caste, community, age and education. The youngest is 21 and the oldest, 57. For some like M. Shahida Banu, the Samarth programme (which started on April 4) has been a chance to learn something new. “None of us had seen a loom before and had no idea about weaving. Now, I go to a shop and demand to know what the yarn count of a cotton sari is,” laughs the 32-year-old, who lives alone with her mother-in-law and child as her husband works in the Gulf. She is proud that she’s proved to everyone she can learn a new skill. For others, it’s been an opportunity to break out of the shackles of daily wage labour or patriarchal oppression at home. “I earned ₹200 a day doing hard labour from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.,” says R. Bhuvaneswari, who signed up because she would not only earn a stipend of ₹13,500 by the end of the programme, but also learn a skill ensuring a steady livelihood.

Why Ezhuchi will spread joy

Helping the women achieve this is Mani Chinnaswamy and his wife Vijayalakshmi Malani Nachiar. Directors of Appachi Cotton, they are also the founders of Ethicus, India’s first farm to fashion brand (they grow their own cotton). In the last 12 years, the sustainable brand has not only created unique handloom saris, but has also given its weavers an identity. (Each Ethicus sari comes with a tag that has the weaver’s photograph, name, age and the time it took her to weave the piece. They were the first in the country to introduce this concept.)

“These women are the first batch, and we hope they will be the catalysts for a social movement that we call Ezhuchi [meaning ‘arise’ in Tamil],” says Nachiar, who has in the past organised cotton trails for names such Donna Karan, the American designer, and Jurgen Lehl of Germany.

The seed of the idea was planted after experiencing years of struggle to keep handloom weaving going. “We heard the looms fall silent one by one as weavers began to desert work,” she says, echoing the reality that is being witnessed across the country — one where the children of weavers are looking for jobs elsewhere, leading to a deterioration of skill in the existing clusters. So, when they saw an opportunity to turn things around with the Central Government’s skill development programme, they grabbed it. “The programme enables the sharing of knowledge that was the preserve of specific communities,” says Chinnaswamy, explaining that weavers from Ethicus instructed the women.

Looking out for each other

The stories of the women give hope. “Ezhuchi offered us something more lucrative and sustainable, but also something that affords us dignity and an identity,” says N. Nivedita, 23, who, despite having a degree in computer application, had been unable to get a job. Before she signed up, she sold milk while her mother made brooms.

Kavitha Marimuthu shares how she had a tough time convincing her over-protective parents to let her participate. Her mother, Veeramani, joined the course just to keep an eye on her daughter! Today, the two are familiar with the structure of the loom and have mastered three basic weaving techniques.

And then there’s the oldest, K. Tamizharisi, with twinkling mukkubottu (nose pin) on either side of her nose, who ran a petti kadai (a tiny shop) in Athu Pollachi village about 11 kilometres away. “I have a patch of land near my home, and I have offered it to anyone who wants to put up a shed and loom there [only those who own 300 sq ft of space are eligible for a subsidy of ₹2 lakh].”

That is what women do, says Nachiar, adding that they work hard and are willing to share generously.

With jobs in mind

The problem with programmes such as Samarth is that they are often misused. While there is no official data on how many people have made a living out of it, the Pollachi programme has a fair chance of succeeding because of Ethicus, its network of contacts, and the support being extended by stalwarts of the South’s textile industry. (Nalli Kuppuswami Chettiar of Nalli Silks, P.K. Arumugam of The Chennai Silks and others have signed an MOU pledging their support.)

Chinnaswamy and Nachiar have already offered some of the women — who’ve since formed the Ezhuchi Women Weavers’ Producer Company — jobs. They have also approached corporates and other institutions to see if the products made by the women can be used as corporate gifts and the like.

The Ezhuchi movement is aligning itself with sustainability, too. Rahul Kiran and Shakti G., two designers from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and Kurukshetra respectively, have come up with designs for table runners, table cloths and mats that the women can weave.

The yarns (made from recycled banian waste fabric) are being sourced from nearby Tiruppur, the hosiery capital of Tamil Nadu. “The perfection of finish, the quality of the product, and the price points are what will convince the buyers. The stories of these women will be the cherry on top,” says Nachiar.

Meanwhile, the pieces of coconut shell under the peepal tree are gathered into a basket. They will be cut into little squares, polished, printed with a QR code, ready to be tagged to the products. “Breaking the coconut represented the women breaking out of the shells they have been living in. The shells they have emerged from will now carry their story,” Chinnaswamy concludes.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Coimbatore.