The kamalkosh cane mat tells a story

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.

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'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).