Tanti or Weaver's Speak
The weavers work in cooperatives based out of Nabadwip and Kalna, viz. Matiary Kutir Shilpa Pratisthan and Nabadwip Kutir Shilpa Pratisthan. They are given the raw cotton threads and have to give back the finished cotton cloth after it has been woven by hand. They earn about ₹10, 000 for each finished bale of cloth for their labour. The weavers are sometimes left with excess cloth which can be sold to private clientele, although, this happens rarely.
The process of weaving khadi is time consuming and laborious. It requires approximately eight people 15 days to finish a piece. The work environment has to be controlled strictly as the atmospheric humidity affects the quality of cotton.
Khadi weaving is becoming a dying art since most of the new generation is looking for work outside of family-run businesses. But they are getting a lot of encouragement from the government in terms of displaying their skills at trade fairs all over the country.
Shri Nanda Aich has won the President's Award on numerous occasions for being able to pass one bale of cloth through a ring. The muslin is very fine and comes in two colours. One is called kora or slightly wheatish coloured, from raw cotton, and the other is plain white, which occurs when the threads are washed after curing and before weaving. Some cloths are also textured depending on the client's demands. But these are, understandably, more time consuming.
Although the muslin is of export quality, the weavers do not have access to foreign markets. All the profits and losses are made by the cooperatives which they operate within. The co-operatives have access to funds from banks and make payments to weavers from their export business.
For the weavers, agriculture is secondary since they do not own land. They find work as agricultural labour for three months in a year. For them weaving is a good back up which they can rely on whenever work is short.
They are allied activities which go together with weaving. There are some micro enterprises in the village which work on embellishing the cloth, like making booti or embroidery on saris and dying them. Credit facilities are mostly obtained from microfinance institutions. More about those here.