Giving a new life to old weaves

Academician, Krishnakumari Chennakesavulu and her banker husband, Narahari Sekar have been in the pursuit of discovering the old weaves of coastal Andhra Pradesh during their weekends. This led to the founding of ‘Punarvasthra.’ In this context, it means giving a new life to an existing weave. Krishnakumari was born under the star, Punarvasu. Her son, Sreenath came up with the name, ‘Punarvasthra’ by bringing together the first half of the star and the word Vasthra which indicates fabric. The objective was to revitalize the life of the handloom weavers.

Dr. Krishnakumari (Ph. D. in Education) has been part of Kaithari, a handloom group. This group consists of handloom lovers. The participants would drape themselves in a cotton saree, take a picture and write about it. “All the south-indian weaves were thought to be from Chennai. Even well-informed people could not recognize the numerous varieties. Only the weaves from Mangalagiri, Venkatagiri, Uppada, Gadwal, Kalamkari and Pochampalli of the Telugu speaking regions were popular. I wanted to tell people about the numerous varieties of weaves found in Andhra Pradesh. The weaves of both the Godavari districts and Srikakulam have been unique. The advent of modern technology and mass production have made life difficult for the traditional weavers of our country. I understood that it was now or never! Therefore, I got into the handloom activity. Handloom sarees were purchased from the societies and sold to customers through Punarvasthra,” stated Krishnakumari of Rajamundry (Rajamahendravaram).

Marketing and awareness has been through the social media. Tools like Facebook best serves the purpose. The friends at Kaithari were also eager participants. Krishnakumari hails from Eluru and she began to source sarees from a street called Pathebada. The weavers here were adept in traditional weaving and one old lady among them was exclusive in terms of her work. Krishnakumari began to purchase from this one lady with one loom and this lead to the revival of the Pathebada weave. Now a days, the weave is known as Pathebad (Checked sarees). There had been three hundred looms at one time and had got reduced to less than thirty. Krishnakumari’s intervention had helped in ensuring that the weave survived.

Katheru is a small village near Rajamundry and was home to a beautiful weave. Lack of Patronage destroyed the textile tradition of this village. Finally, the only weaver, Mallaiya gave up and there was a bit of unsold stock of sarees in the local society. Punarvasthra cleared all the sarees and now they are with handloom saree connoisseurs. It is now difficult to get one more saree from the same village.

Adampalli village is east Godavari district was popular for its stripped sarees. Dr. Krishnakumari took six sarees from this village for about 900 per saree. She posted this information in Kaithari and all of them got sold. Punarvasthra would add just the cost of transport and packaging along with the price of the saree. Now, the Adampalli weave has got revived through the twenty friends of Dr. Krishnakumari. Today, more than 4000 people are viewing Punarvasthra. Readers must remember that the revival has been possible through word of mouth only.

Now, Dr. Krishnakumari has revived the Anghara, Srikakulam, Pasalapudi weaves. These sarees are priced around ₹ 1050 to ₹ 1150 approximately. Dr. Krishnakumari has been visiting numerous societies in order to revive fast disappearing weaves. “The best complement was from a lady from Bengal. She stated that our Godavari sarees were better than Bengal Cotton! I was super-thrilled to receive this compliment. Our weavers use pure cotton yarn for both the warp and the weft. Most of the yarn is sourced from Chirala or Guntur. It gives me great satisfaction to market these sarees which are wearable, washable, durable and summery.”

Dr. Krishnakumari has been marketing the light-weight sarees from Bobbili and she has been working with the committed weavers from Ponduru. The Kadhi from Ponduru has been very famous. Gandhiji’s Dothis are from this place and Indira Gandhi used to source sarees from the same village. The weavers use exclusive and special hand-spun yarn for the fabrics made by them. A fishbone would be used to clean cotton and convert it into yarn. Ponduru Kadhi Dothis are priced a little over 3000 and they are embellished with a temple border. The colors red, green, and maroon are used for these dothis. Sarees from Ponduru are priced at ₹ 4000. We are trying to help the weavers at the micro-level. Conservation has to ensure that all these stake holders are happy,” smiled Dr. Krishnakumari. She calls herself an accidental entrepreneur. She was happy to state that the weavers at Ponduru had portraits of Mahatma Gandhi in each of their loom rooms.

The sarees from Srikakulam are very coarse for they are prepared by using 40s (warp) and 60s (weft) yarn. It was considered of be the sarees meant for people who toiled on the lands. But the effort of Punarvasthra has made the Srikakulam weave popular and it is doing well now. The Bobbli sarees are made with fine 120s Cotton. Today, Bobbli has become has famous once again.

The family of Krishnakumari has Lord Venkateshwara of Tirupati as the Kula Devata and Krishnakumari’s favorite has been Sai Baba of Putta Paruthi. She had grown up in Chennai but the unfortunate passing away of her father Goli Seshagiri Rao forced her mother, Prabavathi to move over to Eluru. The conserver of weaves is blessed with one more son – Dr. Kesava Krishna and he his preparing for his postgraduate medical degree. Sarees from Punarvasthra have been traveling to Dubai, USA, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and other places too. Krishnakumari’s friends include the well-known writer, Padmapriya Baskaran of Chennai.

The Pandemic has slowed down the activities of Punarvasthra, “The weavers have requested me not to visit them during the most troubling times. I really do not know how to reciprocate their concern for me. Well! I am going to start all over again. I am going to continue to weave relationships in order to ensure that the Godavari weaves continue to thrive,” added Dr. Krishnakumari Chennakesavalu.

TRUE RAMARAJYAM!

Contact number of Krishnakumari Chennakesavalu - +91 94915 77664

Mr. Rajesh Govindarajulu is one of the founding members of the Verandah Club Pvt. Ltd. He is a leading columnist, historian, jeweler, entrepreneur, and a heritage enthusiast who is earnestly working to revive the past in the light of the present. Experiential learning about the history of Coimbatore is his main course of interest and he is also a panel member of many colleges in the city.