Umesh Solanki

Pratishtha Pandya

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A paved side road forking off the Limbdi highway
stretches right up to the village of Mota Timbla, about 10-12 kilometres away. At
the very edge of the village is Vankarvas, a space designated for the homes of
the Dalit weaver communities residing here. Khat-khat…khat-khat, the rhythmic
sounds of shuttle looms echo in the narrow lanes between old-style, tiled-roof houses
and a few thatched ones, an occasional human voice or two interrupting the periodic
beat of the handloom. Listen closely, and you will even hear the sound of
labour. Tune in a bit more, and you’ll catch what seems a faint sound of regret
weaving an intricate pattern within the louder rap-trap-rap, like a prelude to
the story of Rekha Ben Vaghela. 

&quot;I had hardly been three months in Class 8.
I was living in a hostel in Limbdi and had come home after the first school
exam. That is when mother said that I was not going to study any further. Gopal
Bhai, my elder brother, needed help. He had already dropped out before
graduation to earn a living. Our family never had the money to support [the
education of] my two brothers. That is how I started patola work.” Rekha Ben’s words are straightforward but
sharp, like all things honed by poverty. Now in her 40s, she is the master
weaver of Mota Timbla in Gujarat’s Surendranagar district.

“My husband was addicted to alcohol, gambling, paan-masala,
tobacco,” she says, pulling in another thread of the story of her life after
marriage. A rather unhappy one. Often, she would leave her husband and return
to her parents’ home, but would be coaxed into returning to him. She was miserable. Yet, she bore it all. “He was not a man of good character,” she says. 

“He used to beat me up sometimes, even during
my pregnancy,” she says. You can hear the wounds still afresh in her voice. “I
found out about his affair after my daughter was born. I continued like that
for a year. That is when Gopal Bhai died in an accident [in 2010]. All his patola
work was pending. Gopal Bhai owed money to the trader who had got him the
material. So, I stayed back [in my parents’ house] for the next five months and
completed all his work. After that, my husband came to pick me up,” she says. 

A few more years went
in fooling herself into thinking she was happy, in caring for the young one, in
enduring the pain within. “Finally, when my daughter was four and a half years
old, I could not bear the torture anymore and just left,” says Rekha Ben. The patola
weaving skill she had acquired after leaving school came to her aid when she left
her marital home. It smoothed the sharp, rough edges left by poverty, and gave
her a new start in life. A strong one.

Before long, Rekha Ben became the only woman patola
weaver in the villages of Limbdi, the one who could align the warp and weft threads
with the skill and ease of an expert.

“In the beginning I used to go to the
neighbour’s house opposite ours for dandi work. I must have taken a
month to learn,” Rekha Ben says. As she speaks, she is adjusting the shuttle, rubbing
her rough cheeks weathered by experience, and resting her elbows on the loom.
She carefully aligns the patterns on the threads along the warp (longitudinal)
and the weft (transverse). 

Replacing the empty spindle in the shuttle with
a new one, she presses the two pedals of the handloom that lift the desired
layers in the warp yarn, allowing the shuttle to pass through. One hand pulls
the lever controlling the movement of the weft thread, another quickly pulls
the beater to keep the weft yarn in place. Rekha Ben single-handedly weaves the
patolu, her eyes on the loom, her mind foreseeing the pattern; she talks
about her life and craft in the same breath. 

Traditionally, there are at least two people
involved in the weaving of a patolu. “The one who does the dandi
work, the helper, sits on the left, the weaver is on the right,” she explains. Dandi
work involves aligning the pre-dyed threads of warp or weft or both,
depending on the type of patolu that is being woven.

The weaving process is intensive when one looks
at the time and the labour spent on each piece. Rekha Ben, though, with her
skill and dexterity, makes everything look effortless. It’s as if the entire
complex process of weaving is nothing but a magical dream in her eyes that
unfolds at her fingertips. 

“In single ikat, the design is only on
the weft. In double ikat, both the warp and the weft have a design,” she
explains the difference between the two kinds of patola.

It is the design that
differentiates the two types. Patola from Jhalawad are of the single ikat
type, made from fine silk from Bengaluru, while those from Patan are double ikat,
using a thicker silk from Assam, Dhaka, or even, weavers here claim, from
England.

The complex process of tying and dying known
as ikat has been practised by weavers across many parts of
India, like in Telangana or Odisha. However, what makes the patola from
Gujarat unique, apart from its geographical location, are its intricate and
clear designs, and the vivid colours of the silk. The final products are
expensive and have a history of royal patronage.

Padi patole bhaat, faate pan feete nahi.
The design of the patola, the popular Gujarati saying goes, never fades,
not even when it frays. What goes into the patola design is another
complex story. For another time. 

Rekha Ben’s time after she left her husband’s
house was anything but easy. It had been a long while since she had given up
weaving. Getting back to it was tough. “I spoke to two or three people, but no
one trusted me with work,” she says.“Jayanti Bhai of Somasar gave me six sarees
to weave for a fixed wage. But I was getting back to it after a gap of four
years, and the finish was not as good as expected. He found my work raw – and never
gave me another chance. He always had some excuse,” Rekha Ben says, weaving in
a sigh. I wonder if that would disturb the precise alignment of the warp
threads, crucial for the overall pattern.

Days passed without work, in a ‘to-ask-or-not-to-ask’
dilemma.  The shades of poverty ripened. When
it came to work, Rekha Ben didn’t mind begging, but pride came in the way of
asking for money. “I spoke to Manubhai Rathod, my fui’s son [father’s sister’s
son]. He gave some work. There was some improvement. He liked it. I worked for
more than a year and a half as a labourer, weaving for a wage. That was single ikat,
and I used to get 700 rupees for a patola saree,” recalls Rekha Ben.
“When my sister-in-law [Gopal Bhai’s wife] and I worked together, it took us
three days to weave one.” That’s well over ten hours of labour in weaving alone
on each of those days. More hours are spent on other tasks.

The life of constant strife, though, gave her
some courage. “I thought,” she says, taking a deep breath, “that it would be
good to be on my own and work on my own to better our financial situation. I
bought the raw material, and got the loom prepared from outside. Once the loom
was ready, I brought the warps home and started weaving.&quot;

“Not for any orders,”
she adds with a proud smile. “I started weaving my own patola. And I even
sold them from home. Slowly, I increased the production.” That was one
extraordinary feat – a move from vulnerability to independence. There was only
one niggling regret she had – her lack of knowledge and command over the double
ikat weave.

“Finally, I took training for that from my
elder paternal uncle for a month and a half,” she says. Her daughter was still
young, in Class 4, she had no ties with her in-laws’ family, and the financial stress
on her was still great. But Rekha Ben was determined. “I put all my savings
into buying raw material, silk yarn. I prepared the yarn with designs for
sixteen patola on my own,” she says. 

“You need a minimum of three people to do this
job and I was all alone. I was confused. Pasi vicharyu je karvanu chhe e
maraj karvaanu se. Man makkam kari lidhu pasi. [But then I told myself that
there is only me for all that needs to be done. I made up my mind].”  And yet, when she sometimes needed help,
people in the community came forward to lend a hand: to stretch the now coloured
threads of warp between two poles in the street to give it a coat of starch and
strength; to roll the starched warp threads on the beam; to fix the beam on the
loom; to connect the yarn threads on the beam through the phen (heddles)
in the right order (a process known as slaying) and set the handloom ready for
weaving. 

Giving the threads a coat of starch is a tricky
business. Carelessly leaving extra flour on the yarn will attract rats and
lizards to the loom.

“Double ikat was not easy. I made mistakes.
Like errors of alignment in the weft and warp threads. I even had to call
people from outside to teach me. No one will come when you call them once. I
had to keep going and requesting them four or five times. But then it all got set!”
Her smile has a ring of satisfaction mixed with uncertainty, fear, confusion, courage,
and persistence. ‘It all got set’ meant the warp threads were well aligned with
the weft threads, ensuring the flawless pattern on the fabric without which the
patolu will prove to be more expensive for the weaver than the buyer. 

The intricate double ikat patola once came
exclusively from Patan. “The weavers in Patan get their silk from England, we
get it from Bengaluru. Many traders buy their patola from Rajkot or
Surendranagar and then put the Patan stamp on it,” Vikram Parmar, 58, another
weaver from the village speaks from his experience. 

“What they buy from
us for fifty, sixty, seventy thousand rupees, they sell at a much higher price.
They too weave but they find this cheaper,” says Vikram. More than one weaver
in the village tells this story of the cheaper patola of Jhalawad
bearing a Patan stamp, getting sold for lakhs of rupees in the big cities. This
has been going on for a long time now.

About forty years ago, 70-year-old Hameer Bhai,
from an earlier generation than Rekha Ben’s, brought patola weaving to
Limbdi taluka. 

“Arjan Bhai got me to Rajkot from Bhayavadar,” Hameer
Bhai recalls his journey to Katariya village in Limbdi. “For about a month or
two I was shifted from one factory to another. Once the owner asked me: ‘cheva
so? [what caste are you?]’ and I said ‘Vankar.’ That was it. He said
‘kal thi no aavata, tamara bhegu pani nath pivu’ [Don’t come from
tomorrow; I don’t want to accept even water from you.]’  After that, Mohan Bhai Makwana once asked if I
would like to learn making patola, and I started at five rupees a day.
For six months I learned how to design, and the next six months I learned to
weave,” he says. He returned to Katariya after that and continued weaving, and
passed on the skill to many others. 

“I have been weaving for the last fifty years,”
says Punja Bhai Vaghela, another weaver. “I must have been in Class 3 when I
started weaving. I used to work with khadi first. Patola came
later. My uncle taught me patola weaving. Since then, I have been doing this
work. All single ikat, seven to eight-thousand-rupee ones. We, husband and
wife,” he points to his spouse Jasu Ben, “worked for Praveen Bhai in
Surendranagar, and now for the last six or seven months we work for Rekha Ben.”

“If we sit by her side [helping with thread
alignment] at the loom, we get 200 rupees a day. If we do a few, small design-related
jobs, we may get 60 or 70 rupees. My daughter Urmila goes to Rekha Ben’s house
for yarn colouring work. She gets a daily wage of 200 rupees. Everything adds
up and we manage,” says Jasu Ben. 

“These loom-shoom and
all, belong to Rekha Ben,” Punja Bhai adds, stroking the teakwood frame. The
cost of the loom alone could be as high as Rs. 35-40,000. “All we have is
our labour. Everything put together, we make about twelve thousand rupees a
month,” says Punja Bhai, his words trying hard to paper over his poverty.

Rekha Ben had to outsource some of the weaving
to Punja Bhai as business took off. “I wake up at five in the morning,” she
says. “I sleep at eleven in the night. I keep working all the time. All the housework
is left for me to do. So is the outside work, including maintaining relations
with people in the community. The whole business is also on my head alone.” Rekha
Ben slides the bobbin with the weft thread into the shuttle and slides the
shuttle from right to left. 

Mesmerised, I watch the shuttle move from right
to left, left to right, Rekha Ben’s hand aligning the warp and the weft, a
perfect patola design in the making, and Kabir playing at the back of my
mind: 

‘नाचे ताना नाचे बाना नाचे कूँच पुराना करघै बैठा कबीर नाचे चूहा काट्या ताना&#39;



The warp and
weft dance, so does the
old koonch* Kabir at the
loom dances as the rat
cuts the thread



*a soft brush
used to clean the yarn



The writer wants to
thank Jaisukh Vaghela for his help.

The warp and weft of Rekha Ben’s life

రేఖా బెన్ జీవితపు పడుగూ పేకా…

ரேகா பென் வாழ்க்கையின் குறுக்கு செங்குத்து இழைகள்

ਪਟੋਲੇ ਦੀ ਤਾਣੀ ਨੇ ਸੁਲਝਾਈ ਰਿਸ਼ਤਿਆਂ ਹੱਥੋਂ ਉਲਝੀ ਰੇਖਾ ਬੇਨ ਦੀ ਜ਼ਿੰਦਗੀ

ଜଞ୍ଜାଳରେ ବୁଣା ରେଖା ବେନ୍‌ଙ୍କ ଜୀବନ

रेखा बेनच्या आयुष्याचा ताणा आणि बाणा

രേഖാ ബെന്നിന്റെ ജീവിതത്തിന്റെ ഊടും പാവും

ರೇಖಾ ಬೆನ್‌ ಬದುಕಿನ ಸೀರೆಯ ಅಡ್ಡ ಮತ್ತು ನೇರ ಎಳೆಗಳು

रेखा बेन की ज़िंदगी का ताना-बाना

ताना-बाना संग पिरोय रेखा बेन के जिनगी

ताना-बाना संगे संवर उठल बा रेखा के जिनगी

রেখা বেনের জীবনের টানাপোড়েন

জাকি উঠে, জাকি নামে, ৰেখাবেনৰ জীৱনটোৰ দৰে

રેખાબહેનના જીવનના તાણાવાણા

Limbdi

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ہمارے بارے میں جانیں

پاری میں آپ کا خیرمقدم ہے

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The warp and weft of Rekha Ben’s life

In Mota Timbla village, single mother Rekha Vaghela weaves her complex life story alongside Gujarat’s patola – handwoven silk fabrics, often sarees, known for their intricate double ikat weave

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