Woolen Stole

Few people outside Kashmir notice the hieroglyphic quality of the weaver’s instruction sheet. Known as the 'talim' (which also means education) it tells the weaver which colours to use to formulate a particular pattern or design.

Kani weavers who use 'kani' (bobbins) of different colours listen as their helper “reads” the talim sheet by calling out the colours in a musical cadence. This tells them which colours to use to create the pre-set patterns on the shawl or carpet they are weaving. Each motif of the talim indicates a particular colour and number so that it would read as “three blue, four yellow, six red, four black…” It was a fascinating challenge for them to weave the talim ‘script’ as a pattern since the instruction sheet itself became the design, and, in effect, they had to prepare a talim of a talim.

Another challenge was in trying to create a shawl in the colours of the pigeons that sat on the windowsill outside the room in which they kept the loom. Shawkat tried to capture an image of a pigeon on his mobile phone but the pigeons kept flying away. He was told there were many pigeons at the Maqdoom Sahib mosque situated near the Kohimaran Fort at Hariparbat in Srinagar. There, the caretaker told him that among the large flock of pigeons one had just died after a scuffle with another pigeon. Shawkat gently carried the dead pigeon in a piece of cloth to the dye-master and asked him to dye the yarn for his shawl in its colours. The dye-master examined the pigeon carefully. He then dyed the yarn in a range of grays perfectly replicating the pigeon’s body, with an added salmon-pink shade – the colour of a pigeon’s feet.

Embroidery in shades of gray and salmon-pink has been added to the “talim” kani border.