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a pit loom that is suitable for weaving Muslin
Jamdanis. The lightweight beauty of muslin
textiles stems from the fine yarns used for
weaving, and these yarns (of a high count)
are obtained by hand-spinning of cotton on
charkhas even today, like in the past. However,
it was a difficult situation that led to me making
a charkha. In 2005, we thought without a Khadi
and Village Industries Commission (KVIC)
certificate we could not weave muslin fabrics.
As my grandfather was a member of the
KVIC, he used to get yarns and weave muslin
cloth. However, we were not members of any
societies. We went to get the certificate many
times but failed. We were told that this involves
a long process of paper work and we would be
unsuccessful with it.
Though the official seemed discouraging of
the time and effort involved in obtaining a
certificate to be able to procure muslin yarns, I
was not discouraged. We thought of forming
a privately owned company. I researched and
explored many places throughout India and
learned how to make the charkha. I was the
first person from my family to learn how
to assemble it after which I started my own
production of yarns.
However, we failed to sell all the textiles woven
from the first batch of hand-spun yarns. In
2007, I took a break from weaving and went to
Hyderabad to look for a job, but after working
for about nine months I realised that I was not
keen on the job and returned home to weaving
with renewed enthusiasm and encouragement.
The situation was bleak as the number of
weavers had dwindled. But I got in touch with
women in Kalna and other nearby villages,
gifted one charkha to each woman who was
interested in hand-spinning and trained them
in spinning muslin yarns. We set up a system
whereby we purchased long-staple Suvin cotton
from farmers, gave it to the spinners and soon
we had a steady supply of muslin yarns
for weaving!
