spinning yarns with malkha
an encounter with a movement
ever since the time i remember, i have been in search of something. it has taken many years for me to recognise this. to give it names - pursuit, existential quest, purpose….
the act of christening, however, is fraught with vagueness in this case - i can never quite place what it is exactly i’m searching for. art allows me to cast this impulse as desire. the kind of desire that constantly over reaches, but never finds absolution - the eternal metonymic loop that thrives in excess. i mean, what use is desire, if the object of longing is conquered. if love finds its end, where is the distance - the inevitable abyss that coaxes the metaphor out of the poet…
i contemplated this question all through what i had begun to mockingly call my ‘self discovery’ trip; In the last month and half, i travelled across the country, making pit stops at different places. i spent a minimum of a week in each place. the trip involved visiting friends, but also, finding the space to reflect, to write, and to work. i carried my texts with me wherever i went. i wore kolatkar like an overcoat. i lived inside his poems and used them, occasionally to mask my own insecurities - sharing his verse instead of my own, as responses to artists friends’ offerings of their own work. i discovered new things about the writer i loved, and the sensibilities he embodied or birthed; new poems, new silences and new pauses that had eluded me before. i found how other creative folk related to his words when they shared their favourites with me, and their experiences. this was enlightening, and deepened my understanding in a way that no archival find or scholarly text could.
is this ‘method’? to immerse oneself in language and turn art into conversation and relationship? to find, in the common tongue of one’s field, the work of memory and experience? much is made about the ‘moment of encounter’ in anthropology and art. anthropologists like to speak about their ‘encounter’ with the people, the community, and the place. artists wax eloquent about the ‘encounter’ with the text - the work of art; a painting, or an installation. i file moments of epiphany in the library of my experiences under the heading of various ‘encounters’. it becomes an unconscious way to earmark and timestamp feeling and emotion - a dubious pursuit at best.
in an essay entitled “Kathleen Stewart Turned Me: Apprehensions of Affect” that reflectively proposes ‘affect’ as both a theoretical and embodied force at the core of research endeavours, William Mazzarella uses the frame of ‘apprehension’ (as a verb) to describe the relationship affect has with research. my articulation of encounter resonates with the emotional landscape of sensation and inarticulable ‘thought work’ that comes with the kind of affective apprehensions that he outlines. he speaks about a personal moment of encounter with three different discursive domains that are usually considered ‘uneasy bedfellows’, and a moment of epiphany which was not particularly easy to articulate - “something decisive is happening here”. do we not feel this kind of sensation in the pits of our stomachs at different times, in different places? do we not smile, then, without really being able to fully comprehend why we feel the way we feel?
he deepens this exploration with a “timely reminder”… what grounds also exceeds; what anchors also unmoors. (italics his)
i return to this essay, often. especially when people respond to ideas i have about my research. my decision to pursue paths in scholarly work are addressed more by these intuitive forces, than rational arguments. i stand by this approach. i think the writer whose provocation “Affect, what is it good for?” generated ripples of discourse in anthropology and media studies, would agree with me:
After all, is anything more palpable than affect? Who doesn’t know the difference between something that resonates, that has a quality of urgency, absorption, movement, and something that just sits there? Who doesn’t know the difference between being told something and feeling it in the flesh? Who doesn’t know the uncanny sensation of setting out for entirely new horizons and, after many years of walking, meeting yourself coming the other way?
(italics mine)
my tryst with ‘self-discovery’ was short lived. as the fragile exoskeleten that we call the self collided with person and place, i found that that the much talked about practice of ‘looking inwards’ was replaced by a quality of attention that reduced the prattling mind to the seeing eye and the listening ear - the sensing body. numerous encounters, that framed collisions between unfamiliar objects and persons, taught me what it meant to be sensitive to what Mazzarella so lovingly describes.
in today’s commentary, i describe the final encounter i had in my trip. i want to share it with you, dear reader, before it becomes old. you are familiar with my ways of looking at things, and perhaps, you will indulge me. if nothing else, let it serve as an incomplete fragment in the Archive of Beautiful Things. this is an encounter - not with a ‘community’, or a ‘space’, but an idea.
and ideas have children.
my first proper encounter with malkha and uzramma came to pass on a rainy sunday afternoon in hyderabad little more than a week ago. i was meeting my friend - let us call her Kala - who was at malkha, and she had invited me to come and see what was happening. her suggestion felt a little bit like an insider’s kindness to a researcher - an invitation to be a ‘participant observer’ in the field. and i was grateful for this kindness… truly.
the ‘shop’ was closed on sunday.
my first impression was that the space defies any possible definition that involved notions of transaction or capital. there is a charpoi on one side draped in malkha fabric, with shelves covered by curtains - a refreshing change from all the commercial fashion establishments which find more and more creative ways of thrusting their wares on their customers. I went and sat on the khaat, and took in the atmosphere. as soon as you enter, there is a working loom that serves as a pedagogic tool for people who come to the space - but is also used to weave fabric. outside there was a vat of indigo natural dye (which was almost ready) with the names of two people in a way that suggested authorship and tribute. this, above all, made me immediately pay closer attenion. I have heard of people, in their utopian artistic notions talk of the dissolving of authorship. but what i noticed at malkha was a careful negotiation of ownership, credit, and commons. (i urge you to find out more about the research initiatives of an independent entity that is closely associated with malkha, entitled handloom futures). on one side of the space is a room with a wall and a bench with samples of yarn, fabric, natural dye and other material. This is the “Reading Malkha Textiles” zone.
i had the good fortune of being taken through this process by kala and Dharmender who is a veteran, and ‘custodian’ of malkha. the fabrics are placed only on the sides, against the wall - this made me feel like i was in the drawing room of a home, as if i was there to ‘hang out’ and be with the space, and the people.
when i entered, kala was on the floor with a mobile phone camera in her hand (she didn’t have a tripod - a ‘handmade’ film for ‘handmade’ material). three people were participating in the recorded conversation. Jagan, Manikantha, Dharmender and Uzramma traversed a wide expanse in their discussion. they spoke about colonial histories of cotton production, the socio-economic landscape which births the revolutionary philosophy of malkha, and the various innovations instituted by malkha that often emerged as clever, jugaadu responses to deal with resource and space constraints. manikantha works with malkha, and uzramma is the founding presence, the firebrand who brings all these actors together. kala told me that uzramma doesn’t like to take credit for all the work that goes on there. she was speaking in english and careful telugu, while jagan was translating and enhancing her words. jagan was another veteran who had worked with uzramma in the formative years of dastakar, andhra pradesh. i sat a few feet away from them, my ears pricked up - trying to catch what i could.
at one point after jagan finished a lenghty but insightful explication of the journey of colonial capital, large cotton mills and capitalism’s impact on ‘small enterprises’ such as malkha, uzramma directed a question to jagan, to which kala responded (she was directing the open ended conversation with minimal instruction, as she recorded it). referring to the complex global environment of fast fashion, with big organisations and mills churning out mass produced, cheap fabric, kala reiterated a significant point that jagan made - about how one could not go back to hand-spinning. uzramma listened patiently, but i detected a quiet defiance in her response to kala:
“why?”
kala, stopped for a moment, and then uzramma went on - “why can’t we go back to hand-spinning?” kala smiled and accepted the response before continuing the conversation…
reader, it was at that moment, that i understood the beating heart that imprinted its seal one every material endeavour in that space. ifelt that stubborn, defiant belief - a persistent refusal to accept a reality that is imposed, not by modernity, mind you, but by hegemonic forces. this is radical empathy - the engine that powers social movements. and dear reader, make no mistake, this space i describe - rather inadequately - is a movement.
uzramma, to me, is an artist - a variant of the kind of writer i like to call kalam ka sipahi. during our first conversation, i asked her about the reference she made to a pre-indepence letter by a spinner. she immediately gave me the exact reference of “The Representation of a Suffering Spinner” reprinted from tha magazine Young India (21-5-1931). ‘i’m a researcher’, she said, by way of explanation, and sent me a soft copy of the letter by email. she is an enthusiastic storyteller, and if you learn to be patient and listen, she will lovingly tell you interesting yarns about her journey with the land, the people, and of course, cotton. it is a kind of barkat really to be in the presence of such sensitivity. my friend kala would reiterate this to me several times during the trip - and i nodded quietly every time. the political impetus of what i might have earlier called a ‘living tradition’ was apparent in every interaction i had with the the people of malkha.
even dharmender patiently listened to all my questions. i hardly understand telugu, and speak even less - he laughed at my clumsy attempts, but he took out the time to accomodate my random demands. when i asked him about the name ‘blue lotus’ - an enterprise he had started, that was placed within malka, he explained to kala the metaphor of the flower that rises above adversity and dirt. kala told him with an impish smile that i was a poet who was interested in random things like colour and the meanings of names. ah is that so? he asked her. tell him to write a poem about us. i laughed. kala looked at me and smiled, before saying that they could even get it translated to telugu and turn it into song, because all of them weave music, and spin songs, with the same love that they give to cotton.
at that moment i was reminded of an old story the dance maestro astad deboo had told me once when i met him after a performance. readers who have heard this before pliss to excuse maadi. a young astad had come to the gurukul of my ustad (Zia Fariduddin Dagar). he had come there with the intention of attempting a collaboration with ustad. they had a long conversation, with ustad’s nephew, the renowned rudra veena artist Bahauddin Dagar listening and participating occasionally. the conversation turned to things about music and art, and ustad started to sing - it is best to demonstrate musical ideas through practice. at the end of the ‘session’ astad quietly went away, after thanking ustad for the gift of song. he said nothing about his wish to collaborate. when he was leaving Bahauddin asked him why he didn’t speak to ustad about the reason which brought hime there, he replied: ustad himself dances as he sings, what can i do before this divine dance? dada laughed and nodded.
malkha, handloom futures, kala, dharmendar and others embody the spirit of a sublime yet grounded living language. calling it tradition, or community does not really do justice. i came close to them in the way that some of us learn the accent of a foreign language before we actually pick up the words. this is why i can only give you a glimpse of this world. i am truly grateful for this tryst with an episteme, an emotion. i learn, not through text, what it means to pay attention to nature’s gifts - to infuse, even the non-human with humanity, to find ways of living with/and in a natural environment that is assaulted everyday by the hegemonic practices of modern capital and its purveyors. i am fortunate to have encountered this revolution.
perhaps a poem might emerge with a deeper immersion. but for now, i hope this will suffice as an introduction to malkha, its people, and the beautiful work that is being done there quietly, without a single speck of entitlement. i am saving up so that i can transition some day to a lifestyle which embraces the world of handmade fabric, and refuses fast fashion and large brands. if you are interested, dear reader. malkha is online.
here is an excerpt from the ‘making of malkha’ section of their website:
It is this profound, every-day beauty that Malkha seeks to represent - the beauty of the cotton farmer who looks over the land and sky with a knowing gaze and the natural dyer whose hands have turned blue with indigo.
As an experiment, Malkha has gone through many transformations. As we reconsider and return to what has always been our strength, we also look to the future.
i share today not a poem but many poems - you will have to watch this research film to hear them sung or recited.
here is the text which accompanies the film on the handloom futures website:
Ulatbansi/zigzagging | Research Film
How to speak without words?
How to follow zigzags of the shuttle?
How to tune a loom?
How to seek the teacher inside yourself?Weaving is known but not spoken. Kabir, the weaver/poet/saint from the 15th century turned language on its head, to point to this impossibility of speaking weaving, which he also connected to the search for the spiritual within oneself. This film zig zags between the weaving and musical practice of weavers in Kachchh, Gujarat, and the one lone weaver in Chirala, Andhra Pradesh, who holds the memory of a time before the Jacquard loom robbed them of the language of handloom.
From the sky hangs the thread!
Kabir
thankyou for listening.
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