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Shopping at Kanjivaram

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Families, for long have had the tradition of buying wedding sarees from Kanchipuram. With all the new, glitzy shops in Chennai many families still travel to Kanchi, for not only they associate Kanchi with good silk, but also auspicious to buy there in the presence of Kamakshi – not many would skip worshipping the Devi, to seek her blessings after the sarees are bought. I remember in my childhood accompanying my paatti to Kanchipuram on few such occasion. Bharati bus ride from Arakkonam, and then a jatka or Ameer bus from Gangana mandapam to Adisanpettai. It was standard, Lakshmi Vilas – there was a bit of confusion there were a few Lakshmi named shops one after another. Paatti cleared her confusion with the one she wanted, standing Lakshmi logo was her shop. It was never crowded like it is these days. Those Lakshmi shops have also been gone for long, though some old names like Pachaiappas, or Anna Co-op are all there. I had not shopped in Kanchi from then till a few y
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Assam Muga

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There are still many posts pending - but I am jumping in to put out the latest just to establish the connection with the previous post where I talked about Kanchi silk going to Kamakhya Devi. It was my second visit to North East, and was thrilled to be going around Guwahati before heading to Arunachal Pradesh for the BNHS camp at Namdapha. Tickets were booked five months in advance even as my friend Anuradha and I struggled to convince our families about the trip perceived "risky". Travelling from west to east we find it difficult to come to terms with the time difference. We thought we had a whole evening ahead to visit a few temples at Guwahati as we landed at 1 pm. But, we barely managed to see Brahmaputra and the Umananda that is in an island hillock. We were told Sunday would be impossible to have darshan at Kamakhya. Monday morning we had darshan at Kamakhya and in between we had managed to visit a rhino sanctuary at Pobitara and a 6th century Hayagriv-Mad
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Dhonekali or Didi sarees

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Incorrigible preserver .... I can't throw away things that easily. This is a Dhaniakhali (I mostly hear it as Dhonekali when spoken)  #100Sareepact  was bought long before it got branded as Mamta saree. They are cool, simple and inexpensive, at least not those elaborately woven Tants. Though Mamta is supposed to have revived the fortunes of these plain sarees. they are not easily available, for even  in Kolkata during my last trip one had to seek them out...the shopkeeper at Gariahat asked "railway minister sarees?", (yes in 2010 she was still a railway minister). This blue and white has been with me since 1993, bought at Cottage Industries on Chowringhee...Dhaniakhali' s are special to me - the first long distance trip I ever made in life was to Kolkata in 1985, and bought two of them for a princely sum of 55 and 60 rupees. Now, I sound like "andha kalathula naan collegela padikkarppo...." 
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Pochampally, the weave that comes from a great land

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I was all dressed up and worked from my room as I have been doing for six years now, just the day I completed six years in the current assignment. It has been a lonely journey, stressful at times, boring very many times, nevertheless an exciting journey. I had seen couple of bull markets and at least three long and sustained bear markets covering financial sector before starting on oil & gas. For  most part crude has been on a strong bull territory helped by a civil wars, bombings, cross country air strikes all that held up crude price even as US shale was booming. As a reporter the worst challenge, and depressing phase of one’s career has been the Iran sanctions issue – also these six years has seen all sorts of controversies the industry can face, from Radia tapes to oil ministry leaks etc. Let me rather talk about better things like Pochampally and Ikat, the history and tradition.  Since there are going to be lot of Ikat’s coming up before I complete  #100SareePact  a lit
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Ilkals and khun, love of rustic weaves

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People go to Dubai to shop, Singapore to shop, and celebrities go to high streets in London and Paris…. But what can be this fascinating. Small town, ancient, historic and town I was so thrilled to visit, where I could also shop. Badami, a town I knew only from Kalki’s ‘Sivagamiyin Sabatham’ before I started looking at our history and heritage little more seriously. Looking at the Badami of to day, I can’t even keep guessing where the Chalukyan palaces would have, where Sivagami would have kept under say house arrest. There was just one pretty run down, but probably one of the tolerable places to stay was booked for three nights stay. For, I wanted a full day for Badami, one for Pattadakkal, Aihole, Kudala Sangama…I had noted down Ilkal weaves in my note book and thought should look for it. As luck would have it, just as we headed to the restaurant attached the hotel where we stayed, there was a small notice, Siddhalingeshwariya Jawali for Ilkal sarees. We went to Banashankari
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Manipuri weave

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Trouble in Manipur, and here I am posting picture of their saree. It is not being indifferent about their plight. I make a conscious effort to buy their products though they are pricey, for I know the distance it travels.  Manipur's story of weaving is very fascinating. Manipur, and Assam though they wear skirts and sarongs in a three piece fashion are the only states in the North East weaving sare es. Manipur weaves are nothing spectacular, but for them weaving is a cosmic process, and almost all of the weaving is done by women as a daily chore. More about Manipur and weaving in another post, for this is reserved for my friend  Lyla Bavadam  . This saree of  #100SareePact  I had picked from one of Lyla's garage sale to raise money for strays, cats and dogs. It is so easy for some NGOs to raise money, do some big, high profile charity event and run it like an enterprise. But for Lyla it is a very painstaking job....picking up bits and pieces people donate when they vac
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Bit of patchwork, applique like Kutch and Rajasthan on Bengal cotton with half and half, printed stripes on one half plus embroidery, don't know how all of it merged to make one appealing piece of saree #100SareePact . This Kolkata Collection had come up near my bank, and so I decided to drop in during one of those bank visits. It is nice little shop run by a lady, decent collection, but the owner  is hardly there and girls in the shop I found know nothing about the stuff they sell, disappointing. I found this kantha blouse piece at the same shop. Not many visits in all the years, they have been around, but would definitely recommend for anyone who wants cotton and Bengal silk. With Puja not very far away I am sure the shop must be getting ready with new stock  :)  Janmashtami, Ganesh Chathurthi, Navratri, Deepavali, Karthigai, it is going to be colourful time ahead....
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