by Jesmine Kalita
As a kid I grew up seeing the older generation in the family take out that special piece of cloth every winter to feel the warmth during the harsh winter season. Little did I know the speciality of that cloth, it was just a normal dull shawl (I liked colours as a child and dying eri was not common back then) and I struggled finding any reason why it was so important. They called it ‘ENDI” and I called it “RONG NUHUA URA KAPUR”
Now that I am aware of the fact that this rong nuhua ura kapur is adding colour to our culture since time immemorial, I couldn’t resist myself from trying my hands at this.
How interesting is the fact that there are so many unique features of Eri? It is the world’s most sustainable silk, also considered as an all-weather fabric and has a huge demand globally for its features related to ‘non-violence’ or ‘Ahimsa’. The deeper you go the more insightful it becomes.
Eri has a cotton, matte-like finish and is easy to maintain unlike other types of silk. Rearing Eri requires a long duration of time and is extremely labour intensive but understanding the whole process is so mesmerising. In earlier days, watching ladies carry drop spindles wherever they moved in the village in the evening time and take stops to spin gave them a sense of solidarity and was a great sight to witness. This sight however diminished drastically, at least in the villages we work in.
In Porisoi, we pay a tribute to this valuable silk and the rearers of the same. Reviving this whole tradition of rearing silkworms in these villages isn’t impossible but would take years and till then we are here making beautiful products by procuring the right fibre. We know we have added so much colour to our work by bringing back this thread in the lives of our weavers.
There are many more to come but to start off, we have blended eri with cotton to weave this beautiful fabric, making it more ideal for the summer season. Let us pass on the culture and add this to our wardrobe as well.