Sanket Jain

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When Siddu Gavade
decided to go to school, his parents handed him 50 sheep to herd. Like many of
his family and friends, he too was expected to follow the ancestral occupation
of shepherding quite early in life; he never ended up going to school. 



Gavade is from
the Dhangar
community of goat and sheep herders, listed as a Nomadic Tribe in Maharashtra.
They spend as long as six months and even more rearing animals hundreds of
kilometres away from their home. 



One day while
rearing sheep about a hundred kilometres from his home in north Karnataka’s Karadaga
village, he saw a fellow shepherd making circular loops using a thread. “I
found it fascinating.” He goes on to recall how the elderly Dhangar (shepherd)
skillfully wove a jali (circular bag)
with white cotton threads, the colour changing to a peanut brown as he progressed.
  



That chance meeting
set the young boy on a journey practicing the craft that he would follow for
the next 74 years and counting. 



The jali is a symmetrical hand-knitted sling
bag made of cotton threads and tied around the shoulder. “Almost every Dhangar
carries this jali on their long
journeys [herding],” says Siddu. “One can store at least 10 bhakris [flatbread] and a pair of
clothes in it. Many Dhangars also keep betel nut leaves and tobacco, chuna [limestone powder] in it.”



The skill
required to make one can be gauged from the fact that a jali is of a fixed measurement, but the shepherds do not use a scale
or vernier calipers. “It should be a palm and four fingers tall,” says Siddu.
Each jali he makes lasts at least 10
years. “It shouldn’t get wet in the rain. Also, rats love cutting this, so, one
has to take extra care.”

Today Siddu is
the only farmer in Karadaga who can make a jali
using cotton thread. “It’s called jalgi in
Kannada,” he says. Karadaga lies close to the Maharashtra-Karnataka border
in Chikodi (also spelt Chikkodi) taluka of Belagavi district. The
village has around 9,000 people who speak both Marathi and Kannada. 



In his childhood,
Siddu would wait for the trucks bearing suti (cotton
thread). “Because of the [strong] winds, threads would fall off [passing]
trucks and I would collect them,” he explains. He would play with the threads
attempting to make knots. “No one taught this art to me. I learned it by
observing a mhatara [old]
Dhangar.”



In the first
year, Siddu just made loops and tried several attempts at making a knot.
“Finally, after travelling thousands of kilometres with my sheep and dog, I
learnt this complicated art,” he says. “The skill here lies in making
equidistant loops in a circular shape and retaining the shape till the time the
entire jali is ready,” shares the
craftsman who does not use knitting needles. 



A thin thread does
not make proper knots, so the first step for Siddu is making the thread
thicker. To do this, he uses roughly 20 feet of white thread from a bigger
roll. He swiftly ties it around traditional wooden equipment called takli or bhingri in Marathi.
A takli is a long wooden tool, around
25 centimetres long with a mushroom shaped curvature on one end and pointed at
the other. 



He then places
this 50-year-old babul (acacia wood) takli on his right leg and swiftly
rotates it. Without stopping the movement, he lifts the takli with his left hand and starts
pulling off the thread. “This is the traditional method of making a thread
thicker,” he shares. And it takes him roughly two hours to roll 20 feet of
thin thread. 



Siddu has stuck
to this process because buying a thicker thread, he says, is expensive. “Teen padar cha karava lagte [The
thread has to be made of three strands].” However, the friction between the leg
and takli causes abrasion
and inflammation, “Mag kai hotay, don
divas aaram karaycha [Then what
happens? Just take rest for two days],” he says laughing.

Finding a takli has become difficult now,
Siddu says, “The young carpenters don’t know how to make it.” In the early
1970s he got it from a village carpenter for Rs. 50, a princely sum – a kilogram of good quality rice would cost
just a rupee. 



To make a jali he buys around two kilograms of
cotton thread, and depending on the thread’s density and thickness he rolls out
the many feet of thread. Until a few years ago he used to purchase cotton
thread from Maharashtra’s Rendal village, nine kilometres away. “Now, the
thread is readily available in our village, and costs around 80-100 rupees a
kilogram, depending on the quality.” He recalls that the same thread cost him
Rs. 20 a kilogram in the late 90s, and he would buy around two kilos. 



While the art of
making jali, he says, has traditionally
been in the hands of men, his wife, the late Mayavva, helped him thicken the
threads. “She was a master artist,” recalls Siddu. Mayavva passed away in 2016
after kidney failure. “She got the wrong treatment. We had gone for getting
asthma treated, and the medicines had such a painful side effect that her kidney
failed,” he says.



Siddu says, women
like his late wife, master the skill of sheep shearing and making wool threads.
Dhangars then give these threads to Sangars who make Ghongadi (woollen blankets) on pit looms –  a loom that fits
in a pit and the weaver uses pedals to weave. 



Depending on the
requirement and the time on hand, Siddu make threads thicker. He then moves on
to the most complicated part of finger-knitting, a jali where he swiftly
makes a slip knot by interlacing the yarn loops and tying the knots. For one
bag he makes a chain of 25 yarn loops placed equidistant.

“The most
difficult part is starting and making the loops in a circular form.” He adds
that 2-3 Dhangars in the village know how to make a jali, but “they always struggle with making the circular structure
which forms its base. So, they don’t make it anymore.” 



Siddu spends over
14 hours making the circular structure. “If you make a mistake, you have to
redo the entire process.” It takes at least 20 days to make one jali, provided Siddu gets to work on it
daily for at least three hours. He knits over 300 feet of thread across 60
hours with every knot of the exact measurement. Siddu, who now spends a good
deal of time farming, makes the time to knit a jali. In the past seven decades, he has made over 100 jalis for several Dhangars, spending
over 6,000 hours mastering the art. 



Siddu is also
fondly called patkar mhatara (old man
with a turban) –
he wears a white pagdi every day.  



Despite his age,
he has been walking 350 kilometres back and forth to Vithoba’s temple in
Pandharpur town of Maharashtra’s Solapur district for the famous Wari for nine years now. Devotees
from across Maharashtra and a few districts of Northern Karnataka walk in
groups during ashadh (June/July)
and kaartik (after Diwali
during October-November). They sing devotional songs called abhangs and
poems of saints Tukaram, Dnyaneshwar, and Namdev. 



“I don’t take a
vehicle. Vithoba aahe majhyasobat.
Kahihi hot nahi [I know Vitthoba is with me, and nothing will happen],”
he says. It took him 12 days to reach the Vitthal-Rukmini temple in Pandharpur;
when he stopped to rest, he would pick up the cotton thread to make
loops. 



Siddu’s father, the late
Balu, used to make jalis too.
Since barely any jali artists are
left, many Dhangars have switched to buying cloth
bags. “Looking at the time and resources involved, it is not affordable
to continue this art form,” says Siddu. He spends around Rs. 200 on the thread,
and a jali sells for Rs. 250 to 300.
“Kahihi upyog nahi [There’s no
point to this],” he shares.

He has three sons
and a daughter. Mallapa, in his early 50s and Kallapa, around 35, both quit
sheep herding and now work as farmers on an acre of land each. While Balu, 45,
works as a farmer and travels to faraway places to rear and herd 50 sheep. His
daughter, Shana, in her early 30s, is a homemaker. 



None of his sons
learned this skill. “Shikli bhi nahi,
Tyana jamat pan nahi, aani tyani doska pan ghatla nahi [They haven’t even learnt, neither
did they try it, and neither put their mind to it],” he says in one breath.
People carefully see his work, but he says none has come to learn the
art. 



Making a loop
looks easier but comes with tremendous challenges, which often cause physical strain
for Siddu. “Hatala mungya
yetat [pins-and-needle sensation],” he says. Also, this work causes
him a lot of back ache and is a strain on the eyes. A few years ago both his
eyes were operated on for cataract surgery, and now he uses spectacles. While
this has slowed his speed, his determination to keep the art alive stands intact.



A research
<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357773987_A_review_of_India&#39;s_fodder_production_status_and_opportunities">paper</a> on India’s fodder production published in January 2022
in Grass and Forage Science noted that India faces a shortage of green fodder as well as
feed ingredients and even dry crop leftovers – highlighting a major cattle feed
problem. 



Lack of fodder is among the
reasons why only a few Dhangars now rear goats and sheep in his village. “In
the past 5-7 years, we have reported several sheep and goat deaths. This is
because of farmers&#39; rampant use of weedicides and pesticides,” he says. Karnataka’s farmers
used 1,669 metric tonnes of chemical pesticides in 2022-23, according to the union <a href="https://ppqs.gov.in/statistical-database">Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare</a>. This was up from 1,524 metric tonnes in 2018-19.

He further says
that the cost of rearing has increased tremendously, and a hidden cost element
is the rising medical costs. “Every year, one has to spend at least 20,000 rupees
on the animals’ medicines and injections because the sheep and goats are
falling ill recurrently.” 



He adds that
every sheep must be given six injections (vaccinations) every year. “If a sheep
survives, only then can we earn some money.” Also, farmers are using every inch
of land to cultivate sugarcane in the region. During 2021-2022, India produced over <a href="https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1865320">500 million </a>metric
tons of sugarcane, emerging as the world’s largest sugar producer and
consumer. 



Siddu stopped
rearing sheep and goats two decades ago and distributed the 50 odd animals
among his sons. He talks about how the delay in monsoon showers has impacted
the farming cycle. “This year, from June to mid-July, my three-acre land was
vacant because there was no water. Somehow after a neighbour helped me, I
managed to cultivate groundnut.”



A rise in the
number of heat waves and incessant rainfall patterns are making farming a
challenge, he says. “Earlier, parents handed over several sheep and goats to
their children [as security]. Now times have changed so much that none wants to
keep them even if given for free.”This story is part of a series on rural artisans by Sanket Jain, and is supported by the Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation.

In Karadaga, jali making hangs by a thread

جالی دار تھیلی بنانے والے کاردگا کے کاریگر

కారదగ: దారపు కొనకు వేలాడుతున్న జాళీ అల్లిక

ஊசலாட்டத்தில் இருக்கும் ஜலி செய்தல்

ਜਾਲ਼ੀ ਬੁਣਦਿਆਂ ਉਲਝੀ ਜ਼ਿੰਦਗੀ ਦੀ ਤੰਦ

କାରଦଗାରେ, ଜାଳି ତିଆରି କାମ ସୂତା ଖିଅରେ ଝୁଲିଛି

അനിശ്ചിതത്വത്തിൽ തൂങ്ങിയാടുന്ന കാരഡ്ഗയിലെ ജാളി നിർമ്മാണം

ಕಾರದಗ: ಜಾಳಿ ಕಲೆಯ ಕೊನೆಯ ಎಳೆ

अनिश्चितता की डोर में उलझे कारदगा के जाली कारीगर

કારદગામાં તાંતણાના સહારે લટકતી જાળીના કારીગરોની કલા

चिंता के फांदा मं परे कारदगा के जाली कारीगर

एक बित्ता चार अंगुरी के झोरा में अझुराइल कारीगर

কারদগা: গেরোয় আটকে হাতে বোনা জালি বটুয়ার বিরাসত

ভেড়াৰখীয়াৰ জালি মোনা বনোৱা শিল্পীৰ অনিশ্চিত ভৱিষ্যৎ

धनगरी आयुष्याचा गुंता आणि गाठी

Chikodi, Belagavi, Karnataka

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In Karadaga, jali making hangs by a thread

It takes over 300 feet of cotton thread and 60 hours of knitting to make a traditional jali, a sling bag used by Dhangar shepherds. The art of handmaking this symmetrical bag now rests with only a few pastoralists like Siddu Gavade in Karnataka

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