The Gomi Teni sari from North Karnataka, was worn by women in the 12th century.

“They haven’t been worn in over 40 years, though their border styles are used in some versions of the Ilkal sari,” says Hemalatha Jain, who is bringing the sari to Bengaluru, after having worked on its revival through her Punarjeevana initiative which seeks to empower the weavers and sustain such crafts.

“The sari’s motifs (especially on the border) evoke the patterns of jowar seeds, a prominent crop in North Karnataka, and are represented by the herringbone stitch. Gomi Teni saris used to be gifted to pregnant women and were worn by married women during the Sankranti festival. The sari is gifted on these occasions because it represents prosperity.”

She has already revived the Patteda Anchu craft, in collaboration with local craftsmen in Karnataka. She began her work in the town of Gajendragarh (Gadag district).

“When I was working in Karnataka on these crafts, I came across historical evidence for seven saris. The Gomi Teni is among them. It is an everyday kind of sari worn by farmers and other locals. It died out because of power looms and the availability of cheaper material. I was able to get a worn out sample of the sari and I decided to stick with cotton for the revival because of the hot weather in these regions,” explains Hemalatha.

“The reason I took this up is that many weavers want to work with art and I wanted to help them increase the number of looms so more artisans can come together and create a prosperous cluster.”

Beginning with one weaver, she now has a team of 45, including over 35 weavers and other artisans associated with ancillary activities around weaving.

Through her intervention in the revival process, she has brought out saris featuring check body with 2/20 s × 2/40s count and a five-inch border with Gomi design. The saris are reversible with two different pallus (there is no right-side or wrong-side to the sari) and two different borders. They have been dyed using eco-friendly dyes.

“The saris were traditionally made in red, brown and yellow because those were the colours that were available there. They didn’t use colours like black. But now we have saris in a range of colours from navy blue to black and pastel shades, apart from red,” explains Hemalatha. “We are also working to use as little water as possible because North Karnataka doesn’t have much water. Our saris are low-maintenance, the colour fastness is good. They can be washed in the machine, they don’t need any starch, they don’t even need to be ironed.”

Hemalatha brought in these characteristics by keeping the yarn count thick, so the sari doesn’t normally wrinkle.

“I am working on more such saris but I don’t want to talk about them just yet because there is a high danger of replication and duplication in this field.”

The Gomi Teni sari will be brought to Bengaluru tomorrow at Kamalini, the craft store by Crafts Council of Karnataka.

The saris will be on display at Sri Bhooma, 17th Cross, Malleshwaram until March 10. For details, call 23567470.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bengaluru / by Harshini Vakkalanka / March 08th, 2018