Keya Sarkar: Design fixations

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Being a staunch believer in robust local economies, I try to do my bit in Santiniketan to help it along. A few friends and I run a lifestyle store, for which I work on textile products. In the sourcing of fabrics, tie-dyeing, batik, embroidery, tailoring and finishing, I take pleasure in working with local skills. The fact that they are comparable to others across the country is apparent in the orders from Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai and even Italy, Japan, Poland and Peru!

The hunt for local supplies has taken me to the narrowest by lanes of this small town and to many of the surrounding villages. Having been spoilt by phones and fixed appointments, it did take me a while to get used to totally open-ended styles of work, deadlines and the erratic quality of work. But soon I discovered the different rhythms of the weavers, the embroiderers and the tailors and adjusted my expectations accordingly.

I was happy to be working with a weavers' cooperative (had to be named the Tagore Society) which had over 300 members, even if only a third of them were active. It gave me access to a variety of looms, which would allow me to design fabrics for new products.

Anyone familiar with this part of the world would know how famous bags from Santiniketan are. The fabric is nice, the colours great, but in my opinion, a product done to death. I thought the weave would make lovely table mats. I mentioned it one day at the society meeting. Since most of the weavers are women who weave between cooking, feeding children, milking cows and various household chores, they are wary of complicated loom calculations or involved designs. Since I could explain that table mats would require marginal changes in the loom setting and would not affect daily productivity because I was asking for no complicated design, one lady agreed.

I explained what I wanted, specified the colours and came home triumphant. It's a myth: I thought to myself, that it's difficult to work with artisans and crafts people. It's all a matter of communication. If your brief is right, it was bound to work.

I was anxious on the day that I was supposed to meet my weaver colleague who had agreed to dare and reached the society office earlier than the appointed time. Kabita, the weaver, came soon after and seemed as excited as I was while she pulled out the coloured material from her bag. But alas, despite detailed size specifications, each mat was of a different size and I could not find six in the same colour. She was disappointed at my disappointment. But she genuinely was at a loss to appreciate why I was fixated on six being of the same size and colour.

It then dawned on me that at Pashua village, half a dozen kilometres from Santiniketan she may have never been exposed to table mats. I asked if she knew what I was getting her to make. "You will make some other kind of bag, isn't it?" she said confidently, her world view being limited to bags.

I left it at that and agreed to meet her at the society office when she came the next time. This time I carried a table mat, a dinner plate and a napkin with me. I placed the plate on the mat and the napkin beside it to show Kabita what use the mat would be put to. Her friends who were crowding the society office, and were watching this demo with keen interest. They kept asking Kabita if she had now understood what she was supposed to do. She nodded yes and there were peals of laughter. I got the distinct feeling of being humoured.

As we finished and got up to leave, Kabita asked me to visit her in her village. I said I would and asked her when it would be convenient. Her reply was a giggle. "You won't get your plate on a mat," she said. Ever since, every time I sit for a meal, our style, I wonder why all lifestyle stores sell mats in sets of six in the same colour and size!