A Looming Past

Over the last few years we have been infatuated with a plan to retrace Francis Buchanan’s Journey of 1800-01 through parts of southern India.  Although we have put our plan into action, it has not quite worked out the way we had imagined.  Every time we set out to cover a stretch along Buchanan’s route, we were invariably drawn into a detour; a detour not so much a diversion in route, but more a diversion of purpose.  One such detour related to iron smelting in Tumkur and Chitradurga districts and another a historical inquiry on India and the Great Divergence debate using wage and price data sourced entirely from Buchanan’s Journey.  Each detour lasted several months but in the beginning of summer this year, we were finally back on the road, continuing our journey from Hiriyur along the Hiriyur-Srirangapatnam highway.

We stopped at Yelladakere for a cup of tea.  During a casual conversation with the teashop owner, he mentioned the word “kumbli” or blanket.  That caught our attention.  Hadn’t Buchanan written something on coarse blankets?  We rushed to the car to look through Buchanan’s volumes, which we always carry with us.  We soon located a relevant paragraph:

In the neighbouring villages many coarse blankets, or cumlies, are woven from wool which the country produces.  When offered for sale, they are almost as hard as pasteboard; but this quality is given to them by a decoction of the kernels of the tamarind ...  They seem to be an article of dress in almost universal use above the Ghats …

“So do people still weave coarse blankets around here?” we asked the teashop owner.

“Yes, of course” “Take the first left and 12 kilometers from here is a village Obalapura with an entire community of weavers”.

“Should we?”  We asked each other rhetorically.

 We were on yet another detour from Buchanan’s Journey … this time to look for coarse blanket weavers.

At 1 o’clock in the afternoon on a hot summer day, contrary to the level of our enthusiasm, Obalapura looked desolate. But no sooner had we begun making enquiries, our enthusiasm turned to disappointment.  The weavers had given up this occupation.  Yes, all of them.  And this happened just a year ago.  Seeing the anguish on our faces, the villagers, perhaps in consolation, told us there was another village, Yaravarahalli, 25-30 km away where people still carry out this occupation.  One villager was absolutely certain, his daughter was a weaver and he could even take us there.  This was an offer we did not want to refuse.

We reached Yaravarahalli, this time with more guarded expectations.  It was like any other small village and at first did not seem to have anything about it that made it look like a village of weavers.  After being introduced to a few local villagers, we were led towards a small house.  In the courtyard we got a glimpse of some old, if not ancient looking, spinning wheels.  The interior of the house was rather dark but when our eyes slowly adjusted to the light inside, we saw an old man working on a loom that seemed to have been taken straight out of a museum.  Going around the village we were convinced that the initial fascination was not merely momentary.  Almost every house had these ancient wooden spinning wheels and looms and every woman and man, young and old, was busy spinning yarn, ginning wool or working at the loom. We had to come back to know more about these people, their occupation and their lives.  And how could we tell others our story?  We had already thought of the answer; a documentary film.

Over the course of the next several weeks, as we went about filming and taking interviews, we began understanding a lot more of about the weavers and coarse blanket weaving.  The weavers are of the Kuruba caste and consider this not just a traditional occupation but as something they have been ordained to do. It continues to be practiced as it has been for centuries with almost no technological encroachment.  The long and tedious process of making a blanket begins with collecting wool from shepherds once or twice every year.  The weavers, armed with pairs of crude scissors, follow shepherds over hundreds of kilometers as they migrate in search of greener pasture for their sheep.  Shearing wool not only provides the weaver with the raw material for the blankets but also keep the sheep healthy.  In return for their service, the shepherds compensate weavers with a few Rupees for every sheep sheared.  The weavers return to their villages with bags full of wool, which is then beaten with a stick or ginned using a bow before being separated into various colours; black, white and shades of sepia.  With a simple wooden spinning wheel, the nimbleness of their fingers and dexterity of their toes, the weavers transform the raw wool into thread.  Yaravarahalli fitted an idyllic Gandhian setting, where no man or woman, young or old remained idle, working all through the day on the spinning wheel.  The thread then passes through a few more steps before it goes on to the loom.  It is first strung on a wooden frame some ten feet long and six feet wide, where a paste made from tamarind seeds, just like Buchanan describes, is applied.  This tiresome process takes several hours but is critical for it is what gives the wool strength and the ability to resist water.  The treated thread is then measured on an antique looking contraption before the weaver actually puts it on the loom or more precisely, a pit loom.   This is a loom where the weaver’s legs are suspended in a pit dug below the ground.  His body and hands are then on level with the loom placed on the ground.  The loom itself were mere beams of wood, all held together as a frame within which are these rows of coarse wool thread that is slowly knotted together over the next day or two, into a coarse but very elegant blanket.

“Two hundred and twenty five rupees”.

“Impossible.  Maximum is two hundred and ten, same as last year. This is my final offer”.

We could not believe it.  This is what we heard at the meeting between the weavers and a couple of traders to negotiate this year’s price of blankets.  After days of hard work a blanket was sold to the trader at just Rs.210 to Rs.225!  We spoke to the traders, also Kuruba, who take the blankets to the Malnad (about 200 to 300 km away) and sell them to shops and individuals, sometimes on credit.  With a deep sense of concern, the trader told us he sees the worst happening soon; his fellow community people may have to give up this occupation.  The market for blankets is witnessing very poor demand and it is only a matter of a few years before coarse blankets completely give way to plastic jackets and raincoats.  He understands the predicament of the weavers but is helpless against the market forces.  An ancient occupation that has withstood the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution and colonization now stands at the threshold of globalization and rapid economic growth of the Indian economy.  Today, coarse blankets are at the edge, if not the very end, of their existence.  The effect of these forces is already being felt on coarse blanket weaving with the abandonment of looms in several neighbouring villages.

Obalapura was a case in point.  When we returned to find out what was the one final reason that pushed them to abandoning their looms, we were surprised at the answer; bore wells.   Yes, the availability of water had made agriculture more profitable.  With an increase in demand for labour, the weavers found the wages more lucrative than weaving blankets.  While many of them accepted the changing economic realities, there was an old man who seemed shattered at being forced to give up his traditional occupation, his way of life.  “I do not even offer prayers to the loom or the wheel anymore” he said, pointing out to an old and dilapidated loom that lay in the corner.  And in anguish he added, “Our children ask us to close the pits.  We told them why not put us in the pit and close it”.

The documentary took shape in the next few weeks. The film’s objective was simple; it was an attempt to capture the sights and sounds of an ancient occupation in its contemporary and increasingly frayed context and at a critical juncture in its long and textured history.  We were pleased when it was chosen to be screened at a documentary film festival in Slovenia and then in Brazil but the reaction of our weaver friends from Yaravarahalli was even more fulfilling.  “The film will tell our children someday of the hardship and struggle we endured in weaving blankets over hundreds of years”!

It is time to end our detour and get back on our journey … rather, Buchanan’s Journey.