It was in 1981 that M. Durga Malleswara Rao, one of the few artisans in Pedana, launched the business of selling block-printed Kalamkari clothes. Until then, he, like many in the town even to this day, was involved in the production of handloom sarees.
Located 15 km from Machilipatnam, Pedana is known both for its handloom sarees and the famed Kalamkari art form and textile tradition.
As his business expanded, there was a time when he employed 300-odd workers at his unit, Hemalatha Kalamkari Fabrics, to produce Kalamkari cloth. More than 70% of his production is supplied to renowned apparel brands in the country, including FabIndia and Aurelia. Today, however, Malleswara Rao, along with block makers and other proprietors, faces a shortage of workers and artisans due to various factors.
The rise of power looms, which produce similar sarees in a shorter duration and at a lower cost, increased raw material prices, declining wages, and the migration of educated youth to bigger cities for better opportunities have all contributed to the decline of handlooms.
The situation was not always like this. Machilipatnam, of which Pedana was once a part, has a rich history of thriving textile and spice trade. Kalamkari designs were popular worldwide. In ‘A Manual of the Kistna District in the Presidency of Madras’, Gordon Mackenzie writes that Masulipatnam was a place of great traffic where most of their commodities were sold at a good rate. He writes: “The trade of Masulipatnam (in 18th century) had been very extensive in chintzes and colored cloths. It is said that goods to the value of 50 lakhs were exported to the Persian Gulf alone.”
Tracing roots of Kalamkari
Salma Ahmed Farooqui, professor at the H.K. Sherwani Centre for Deccan Studies at Maulana Azad National Urdu University in Hyderabad, says: “Kalamkari came up as a textile tradition during the reign of Qutb Shahis at Golconda in 16-17th century, when spices and textiles were two major commodities for trade between India and other countries.”
The art form originated in Tilang, the region between what is present-day Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. “The word ‘Kalam’ meant pen, while ‘Kari’ meant craftsmanship. While Pedana was the birthplace of block-printing style of the art, Srikalahasti’s style was about using a traditional pen with a brush to draw the designs. Flora and fauna became the motifs of Pedana’s style of art, while mythological figures became the theme of the art that originated in the temple town,” she explains.
The Srikalahasti artisans restricted themselves to making a hand-painted cloth that was primarily used in temples, to either hang it behind the deity or on a chariot. It was only later that the artisans started drawing the figures from Hindu mythology on sarees and other garments.
But it was the Masulipatnam style of art that received patronage and was catapulted to fame through the Mughals, who ruled Delhi at the time, Farooqui adds.
“The Mughals, who had good taste in aesthetic designs, were taken by the intricacy of the block-printing method of Masulipatnam, as it was then called. The motifs that we see today in Pedana’s Kalamkari can be seen on the costumes of the Mughals and the architecture that were built by them. While we cannot for sure say who borrowed the motifs from whom, we know this much that there was knowledge transfer between the Pedana artisans and Mughals,” she says, adding that there was a huge demand for the block-printed clothes from Europe and the Middle East. The British Royalty, particularly, had a liking for it, while the printed fabric was used to make ballroom dresses.
Absence of water in irrigation canals is forcing Kalamkari production houses to search for suitable locations along the river for bleaching and washing printed cloth. The printed cloth attains its natural colour through bleaching, which must be done when water flows. | Photo Credit: G.N. Rao
‘Laborious process’
Pedana style of Kalamkari involves an extensive process of scouring and boiling of a fabric, followed by Myrabalan treatment of the fabric in huge vessels for better absorption of colour, drying, first level printing of designs, then washing of the fabric in rivers to avoid the smudging of colours, followed by second level of printing and then the final wash. The process to print a fabric with Kalamkari designs using natural dyes takes about 16 days, with one-day gap between each process.
The block makers have a process of their own, as they carve a design on a wooden block (made of teak) and keep it ready so that artisans can use these blocks for printing on a washed fabric. After chiselling of the design, the wooden block is kept in oil for a week to prevent it from absorbing water when it is dipped in natural dyes. Then there is whole another process for obtaining dyes naturally, which takes hours, if not days.
This Pedana style of Kalamkari was registered in the Geographical Indications Registry (GIR) of the Government of India under the Geographical Identification of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, in 2013. This limited the art geographically to Pedana, Machilipatnam, Polavaram and Kappaladoddi. It is also Krishna’s ‘One District One Product’.
But, despite the tags and recognitions, Pedana has not just seen a decline in weavers and looms, but also in the number of Kalamkari artisans and block makers in recent times.
Today, as one walks along the narrow streets of Pedana, one can still hear the constant, rhythmic chugging of pedals breaking the silence that envelops the small weaving town. But the number of weavers has fallen drastically. The ones who remain are the frail, elderly people who weave sarees for their livelihood.
The old times
“There used to be more than 15,000 looms at Pedana until 1980s-90s, while all that remain today are 1,000 looms,” reminisces Malleswara Rao, who unlike his friends and neighbours, stayed in the textile business despite many challenges that came with time. “We alone had around 1,000 looms. My father had built huge sheds, each sheltering around 40-50 looms, to accommodate them all. Today I have none,” he says, adding that he has shifted his focus to Kalamkari.
Contrary to the present times when handloom sarees have become a prized possession of a few people, earlier, these were worn by women of all classes, while silk remained a luxury, he says. Just how Mangalagiri or Uppada sarees command a high price today, Pedana handloom sarees used to sell like hot cakes.
“Our major customer was Odisha, and then Hyderabad and Srikakulam. Around 70% of our sarees were being sold to people in the neighbouring State,” he explains, occasionally chuckling with excitement.
Those were the times when Pedana was an employment generation hub with workers from Rayalaseema and other places coming all the way here in search of work, he recalls. “We used to pay ₹600-700 per month in the 1990s,” he says.
Malleswara Rao heard about Kalamkari art for the first time when his contemporaries, one of whom was Pitchuka Veera Subbaiah, set up the business. “Kalamkari was forgotten for a while after the British left, but it gained prominence once again in the 1960s when social reformer Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay strove for the revival of indigenous arts and handcrafts. As a result, the art form was resurrected, giving way to the booming of block makers,” explains Pitchuka Srinivas, proprietor of Syamala Arts and Crafts and son of Veera Subbaiah.
“My father, then in the business of selling handloom sarees, heard the name ‘Kalamkari’ for the first time during one of his trips to Bombay. A customer, on knowing that my father is from Machilipatnam, had apparently asked for Kalamkari fabrics. Stunned, my father returned home to find out what it is. After the initial setbacks, he went on to set up the first Kalamkari unit at Polavaram in 1968 along with his four partners. Later, he returned to Pedana to set up a unit here as well,” he says, recalling the journey. Before Kalamkari sarees became famous, the fabric was used mainly to make skirts, table cloths, etc.
Today, Srinivas is one of the few crusaders promoting traditional dyeing and making of Kalamkari fabrics, as most others have begun using chemicals. Most of his produce is supplied to Mary Bergtold Mulcahy who runs a textile company ‘Les Indiennes’ at Hudson, New York. Like in the old times, there is a great demand for Kalamkari fabrics in foreign countries than here.
Narasaiah, a block maker here, says Kalamkari fabrics can be found on display in museums in London and other places. Narasaiah and his national-award winning artisan K. Gangadhar have lakhs of wooden blocks that they have preserved for more than 50 years. But, while he is awash with orders from across the country at present, he worries about the decline in the number of block makers.
“More than traditional occupations, the charm of the cities appeals to the youth,” Narasaiah says, adding that his own children are not interested in this field.
“That is the irony. It is unfortunate that people of this land, which gave birth to this art form, know little or nothing about what we do. We are not even respected here,” he sighs, remembering the recent incident when a few farmers objected to his washing of fabric in the Krishna river.
“While we know there are many units that use chemicals in their dyes, which result in pollution when a fabric is washed in the river, we have always used natural dyes. It is the responsibility of the government to make things clearer to the public. What is the use of just announcing it as ‘One District One Product’ if we do not get the help we want,” he says.
The silver lining, however, is that there are a few like Varun Kumar, son of Pitchuka Srinivas, who despite having engineering degree, stayed back in the small town to shoulder the responsibility of taking the art form forward and keeping it alive for future generations.
