Ponduru - spinning and weaving 20 years later

Many now do not want to weave the very fine 100 x 100 count saris they used to earlier. However, new forms of spinning wheels have made the yarn finer.

The finer cloth, newer designs, better organization and finally, better marketing, has kept khadi alive as the fabric that still stirs the hearts of the people.

Ponduru has spinners, dyers and weavers linked to organic cotton growers, and finally to many small co-operative societies that manage their collective needs.

Villagers work as a cohesive community with family members, neighbours and fellow workers.

People of all ages help each other in performative tasks that cannot be carried out alone. Age does not seem to matter to elderly women who engage in spinning even before the milkman arrives in the morning.

Despite the television sets and mobile phones they now have in their homes, women anoint the floors with designs in rice paste and decorate their outer and inner thresholds to sanctify their dwellings as they have always done. They do not leave tradition behind.

Cotton bolls are worked through many stages till they become yarn. Yarn threads are tied and treated till they are ready to be put on the big circular hand -operated warping drum or a small square one. From here they are wound onto spindles that feed the weft threads on a loom.

Then follows the collective washing, drying, ironing, folding, carrying, and finally selling of their fabric which emerge as yardage, saris, stoles and men’s veshtis or lungis.

The sky darkens before monsoon rains descend on the way to Ponduru, in Srikalulam district in Andhra Pradesh.

Ponduru consists of a small scattering of habitations and shops with adjoining villages dedicated to spinning and weaving khadi yarn and cloth.

The familiar image of Mahatma Gandhi on the front board announces the presence of a shop selling khadi fabric in the tiny town of Ponduru.

The entryway of nearly all homes in this region of khadi weavers is a brightly coloured and decorated threshold.

A copper vessel placed there contains water for visitors to wash their feet before entering barefoot.

Mahatma Gandhi is not far from the thoughts of a weaver’s establishment or home.

A page torn from an old magazine carrying a popular image of him is pasted on the wall of a simple abode to remember that he made the khadi tradition valuable during India’s freedom movement.

A handful of cotton that sprang out of cotton seeds.

The first step in the spinning process at Murapaka at the home of Mallipadi Ratnalu.

Catfish bone as a whole, and a portion of it, are made into a comb for a part of the cotton spinning process.

Ingenious local materials to make tools to perform simple tasks are preferred to industrial instruments.

A collection of tools used to prepare cotton for spinning.

On the right, the cleaned cotton is placed in clumps inside a folded piece of dried banana stem for the spinner to grip it while spinning.

Cotton within a piece of banana stem is held between the fingers of one hand.

This connects to the spinning wheel to become thread.

In many textile processes women who work while seated on the floor, use their toes to secure one end of the yarn or thread while the hands work elsewhere.

In most weavers’ homes in Ponduru, young and old women can be seen working at the spinning process at the entrance of their homes.

Children grow up watching their mothers and grandmothers spinning, while the menfolk in the family stretch yarn on the street.

The charkha, spinning wheel, is the simple, traditional Gandhi charkha, which has no mechanisms to speed the process.

No elder woman is unoccupied in a weaver’s family. Each member helps the work forward in some way.

Most weavers’ homes are long and narrow with the back door visible from the front one.

In the front area, the wife spins as the husband weaves, and an infant looks on.

The kitchen comes next with the sleeping area after that.

At the exit of a home, bamboo rods that are fitted to sections of the yarn to be stretched, lie over an auspicious pattern drawn on the ground.

This practice is common in most homes in Ponduru and elsewhere.

Bamboo rods are fitted equidistantly while the warp threads are fitted between them by two to four men working to stretch the yarn.

Activity for a weaver is already hectic at 7 am as it is cooler to work while the sun is not too hot.

All the equipment used by the weaver to stretch the yarn to its full length are simple items like bamboo rods and thick twine.

The local word for warp is padugar, and pheka is the word for weft.

Talithamma holds a palm leaf fan and poses for the camera in her home. After her husband passed away, she continues to spin and help other weavers to tidy up their stretched yarn.

She offers her simple home for visitors to refresh themselves and have a meal. Her son works with an NGO that supports weavers.

In the front of Talithamma’s house in Ponduru lies her work for the day. She carries out small tasks for neighbouring weavers.

Yarn is usually stretched in lengths to weave three, six or twelve sarees. Almost the entire width of a narrow street is used for this purpose.

The full length stretched warp is tilted from side to side many times to get it straight and even. This work is being carried out in Ponduru.

While the warp is laid out it is sprayed with watery starch to slightly stiffen the yarn for weaving.

One man carries the vessel containing the starch while the other sprays it on.

A stiff long brush is indigenously made and pulled along the length of the warp to separate each thread and spread the starch evenly along it.

Every task requires strenuous activity.

The brush is made of wooden or bamboo rods and coconut fibre.

The sacred white ash on the weaver’s forehead indicates he has said his early morning prayers before going to work.

Four men work at counting the number of lengths of yarn. The rapid movement of their fingers needs practice and high skill.

One woman constantly turns different coloured yarn on a large warping drum in a small thatched hut near the weaver’s workspaces on the street.

A master dyer sits proudly by his indigo dyed yarn in his home on the outskirts of Ponduru.

Khadi yarn is dyed in chemical as well as natural colours locally.

The family of B. Linaraju all work at the loom. His home is next door to the shop run by the co-operative society.

Husband B. Linaraju and his wife Paidithalli,and sit at the loom together. They are interspersing a jamdani weave motif in the body of the saree.

Two brothers Batta Laxmanrao and his brother Chandrashekhar and their wives live in adjoining houses weaving at the loom together in Deveravalasa.

A fine 120 x120 count of khadi weave is not produced by many weavers anymore as it requires time, skill and effort.

The elder of the two brothers in Deveravalasa along with his wife, agreed to weave one after a special request was made.

After the cloth is woven, it goes to the washing area in Agraharam village.

The piles of dhotis that have been washed and wrung out by one worker.

The piles are then individually spread out by women workers who spread them out in the sun in an open field to dry.

Then comes the ironing of each piece of fabric. The cloth is perfectly ironed because C. Suryanarayana has weighed down an already heavy old-fashioned coal iron with additional weights.

The iron is now said to weigh nearly 20 kgs, and is almost impossible to lift by anyone not practiced in the skill.

Finally, a perfectly ironed length of khadi fabric is ready to join the pile that goes to the retailer.

Read more about Khadi Weaving here:
-Khadi Spinning and Weaving
-An Archive