Shreya Kanoi

Priti David

Editor

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Few
people can appreciate the finely-woven kamalkosh
mat. 

Fewer
still can weave it. 

Made
in West Bengal’s Cooch Behar district, these highly detailed cane mats, made
with fine strips of starched cane, stand out from other mats for the cultural
motifs on them.

“A
traditional kamalkosh is adorned with
auspicious motifs such as the kola gaach
[banana tree], mayur [peacock], mangal ghat [urn with a coconut], swastik [symbolising well-being],” says
Prabhati Dhar. 

<a></a>Prabhati is among the handful of
weavers of kamalkosh who can weave
these into a mat, and she started young, at the age of 10. “Everyone in this
village [Ghegirghat]
starts weaving mats from a very young age,” says the 36-year-old, dismissing
any suggestion of precocity. “My mother could weave the kamalkosh only in parts, but my father had a good grasp of design
and would explain well, saying, ‘try weaving this
design like this’. Although he couldn’t weave himself, Prabhati feels she
gained a great deal from his detailed explanations.

We are sitting in the
verandah of her home in Ghegirghat.
The covered porch is where most weavers in the region prefer to work.
Her family is all around her, helping with various tasks connected to the craft.
The actual weaving of the motifs within the strands of the mat, is
conceptualised and crafted only by her. “We are habituated to doing this with
our memory,” she says about her design process.

Krishna Chandra Bhowmik
is a trader from the adjacent Dhaliabari town who often orders kamalkosh from Prabhati. “Kamalkosh
holo ekti shaukeen jinish. [Kamalkosh is an object that a connoisseur will value.] The worth of a good pati is understood by a Bengali person
only. That’s why they are the main buyers of the high-end mats,” he tells PARI.

The
Dhar family lives in Ghegirghat village,
almost exclusively populated by weavers, as in fact the entire Cooch Behar-I
block. These are pati weavers, with
roots in Bangladesh, each carrying a distinct style and craftsmanship based on
where they came from. But that’s another story, coming soon. 

The
mats are broadly categorised as pati
(strip) weaving and they range from mota
pati (coarse mats) to the finest and rare kamalkosh. The cane (Schumannianthus dichotomus) is a native
variety found here in the Cooch Behar region of West Bengal. 

To
make the kamalkosh mats, the
outermost layer of the cane stalk must be carefully sliced into thin strips
(cane slips) called bet which are then boiled in starch for added lustre and whiteness, a process that
allows for better dyeing. 

This critical preparatory work is done by her
husband Manoranjan Dhar. She recalls how after she was married, the young bride
told her husband she could weave fine mats but needed the suitable raw material
and so “my husband gradually learnt to slice fine cane slips for weaving the kamalkosh.”

We
are watching Prabhati’s hands as she speaks to us. The only other sound is the
rustle of cane strips as they move through her nimble fingers. It’s a quiet
neighbourhood of houses closely packed, and the occasional motor vehicle passing
by. Banana and betelnut palms surround the house; dense cane thickets rising
seven feet high can be seen from the house. 

This master craftsperson
uses traditional hand measurements – ‘ek
haath’ is roughly 18 inches, measured using an arm’s length. A two and a
half hands wide and four hands long mat would roughly measure four by six feet.


Prabhati pauses her
work to flip through photos on her mobile, showing us some of the kamalkosh mats she has made for her
customers. “The kamalkosh mats are
made on order only. We weave them when the local traders order them. These
specialised mats do not sell in the haat [weekly market].” 

There is a recent trend of personalising mats
with names and dates woven into the kamalkosh
mat. “For marriages, the clients tell us the name of the couple they want to be
woven on the mat. Words such as ‘Shubho
Bijoya’ – a
greeting on Vijaya Dashami –
are also common requests,” she adds as these special mats are brought out on
occasions such as marriages or festivals. “It is easier to weave words in
English than in Bengali script,” points out Prabhati, the curvy-linear letters of
Bengali presenting a challenge.

It’s a rare skill as testified
by Pradip Kumar Rai, the secretary of the Cooch Behar-I Block Pati Shilpa
Samabay Samiti. A weaver himself, he says,
“there are approximately 10,000 mat weavers in the whole of Cooch Behar
district. However, there are hardly about 10-12 rare kamalkosh weavers in the region.” 

The Samiti dates back
to 1992 and has 300 weavers. It is the foremost cooperative society for mat
weaving in the area and conducts the bi-weekly pati haat (weekly mat
market) at Ghughumari – the only dedicated mat market in the Cooch Behar
region where roughly 1,000 weavers and almost 100 traders show up on a
single market day. 

Prabhati is one of the
last practising kamalkosh weavers in
the region, a responsibility she takes seriously. “My mother weaves daily. Even
one day she doesn’t take a holiday. Only if we have to go out for an errand, or
to my grandfather’s place, then she takes off,” says her daughter Mandira who
has picked up the skill by watching since she was just five. 

The couple Prabhati and Manoranjan, have two
children, 15-year old Mandira and seven-year old Piyush (fondly called Tojo). Both
are actively learning the craft in the time they get outside school hours.
Mandira lives with Prabhati&#39;s parents and visits home twice a week to help her
mother with the weaving. The young and energetic Tojo is also a serious
learner, and sincerely prepares the cane slips for weaving. While friends around
are playing cricket, he gets down to work.

Children in the neighbourhood pick up that Prabhati’s skill
offers a chance to experiment they pester her for classes: “my neighbour’s
daughter said to me, ‘kaki [aunt],
teach me also!’.” Her home turns into a creative space during holidays and
weekends. “They are very eager to learn how to weave the peacocks and the
trees. However, they will not be able to weave it right away. Hence, I ask them
to finish the edges of the mat, and observe while I weave the patterns.
Gradually I will teach them,” she says. 

Although Mandira is
learning how to weave the kamalkosh, she is certain she wants a
profession that pays more and gives her time off. “Maybe I will undertake
training for nursing,” she says. “In mat weaving there is a lot of hard work as
well. If one does a [another] job, then one can sit, relax and earn. One
doesn’t have to toil all the time. That’s why no one [in my generation] wants
to take up mat weaving.”

To prove her point she
lists out her mother’s day: “My mother wakes up at 5:30 in the morning everyday. She
sweeps and cleans the house. Then she sits to weave a mat for an hour. She also
cooks for us since we eat in the morning. She eats and then weaves until noon,
breaking for a bath. Then again, she sweeps the house, and sits to weave in the
afternoon. She goes on weaving until 9 in the night. Then again, she cooks,
we eat, and go to sleep.” 

“My parents don’t go for melas because there is a lot to do at home. We have to try to
produce a pati every day as only then
we are able to secure a monthly family income of 15,000 rupees needed for our
essential daily expenses,” says Mandira.

The process of making a
pati is locally termed as samastigata kaaj – a collective effort
of the family and community. “Eta amader patishilpir kaaj ta ekok bhabhe hoye
na. Taka jodate gele shobai ke haath dite hoye [Our occupation of mat
weaving does not happen in isolation. Everyone has to pitch in to secure a
decent income at the end of the month],” says Prabhati who relies on her family
for the prep. 

The work is divided
into “maather kaaj [field work] and barir kaaj [home-based work],” says
Kanchan Dey, from a weaving family and an authority on the craft. He explains
how the men harvest the cane plant, cut and slice it into pliable slips for
weaving while the women boil the cane slips in starch, dry them and weave the
mat. Even the younger children take on the gender divide in the tasks – girls
come to watch her
weave, while the boys try their hand at the cane splitting. Dey is a village schoolmaster from
neighbouring Gangaler Kuthi village.

The number of patibet [cane stalks] required to produce a single pati [mat] of standard size 6 x 7 feet
is 160 stalks. The time taken to prepare these stalks into ready pliable strips
is two days of work, done by men. The two-pronged process, known as bet sholai and bet tola involve dissecting the culm into multiple strips, removing
the woody inner core, and then carefully splitting each thin strip of say, 2
mm, to 0.5 mm thickness. It’s a complicated process requiring a seasoned and
meticulous hand for the fine splitting.

While regular mats are
woven using the natural colour cane slip, the kamalkosh is typically woven with two colours,” adds the master
weaver who must sit in a squat position for hours, sometimes using a wooden piri (low stool) for support. Prabhati uses
her feet as a hold on the edges of the already woven parts, in order to avoid
them from fraying; both her hands are used to lift a calculated bunch of cane
strips according to the weaving pattern. 

She manipulates close
to 70 cane slips at one time. For every complete line of the cane mat that she
weaves, Prabhati has to interweave a single strip up and down through about 600
cane slips, with no other lifting mechanism but her hands. She has to perform
this approximately 700 times in order to weave a mat of six by seven feet.

In the time taken to prepare and weave a single kamalkosh, 10 regular mats can be made
and the price reflects that, says Prabhati. “Making a kamalkosh is more hard work, but it’s also more money.” When orders
for kamalkosh are few, Prabhati also weaves simpler mats, in fact in a
year she says she weaves more of these as they move faster.

The unassuming Prabhati says she enjoys her role as a parent and her quiet reputation as a kamalkosh weaver. “I have the ability to weave the kamalkosh, that’s why I make them. Ami garbabodh kori. [I feel a sense of pride].” After some hesitation, she adds, “many others cannot weave it. I can weave this rare mat that’s why you have come to me, isn’t it? You didn’t go to anyone else!” This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).

The kamalkosh cane mat tells a story

بید کی کمل کوش چٹائی کی کہانی

కమల్‌కోశ్ పేము చాపలు చెప్పే కథ

கமால்கோஷ் பாய் சொல்லும் கதை

ਮਹਿਜ਼ ਇੱਕ ਚਟਾਈ ਨਹੀਂ ਇੱਕ ਮੁਕੰਮਲ ਕਹਾਣੀ ਹੈ ਕਮਲਕੋਸ਼

କାହାଣୀଟିଏ କହେ କମଲକୋଷ ବେତ ଚଟେଇ

കമൽകോശ് ചൂരൽ പറയുന്ന കഥ

ಕತೆ ಹೇಳುವ ಕಮಲ್‌ಕೊಶ್ ಚಾಪೆಗಳು

कमलकोष की कहानी

વાંસની બનેલી કમળકોશ ચટાઈની વાર્તા

कमलकोश बुनई, दुब्भर हुनर

कमलकोस के मोल त कवनो पारखिए बूझ सकेला

কোচবিহাৰৰ পাটীদৈৰ কাহিনী

কত-ই না গল্প বলে কমলকোষ পাটি

Cooch Behar, Koch BihÄr, Cooch Behar District, West Bengal, 736170, India

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The kamalkosh cane mat tells a story

Prabhati Dhar is a master weaver of mats that incorporate auspicious motifs like banana trees and peacocks. Weaving a kamalkosh is a rare skill and one that she is passing on to younger people here in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal

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