Keya Sarkar: Weavers in a marketing warp

When I had moved to Santiniketan and realised that I wanted to work with textiles and crafts, I began by familiarising myself with artisans and their crafts. I was so fascinated by a weaving technique called “khesh” practised here (in which the warp is new yarn and the weft is strips of old saris) that I started to look for weavers who performed this great art of recycling.

My search led me to a well-known weavers’ cooperative that had fallen on hard times. Its office in Santiniketan was a 10-foot-by-10-foot room that housed a loom, a wooden showcase with glass sliding doors and a tin trunk. After many visits (I suppose urban women can look extremely intimidating), I managed to convince them to start weaving for me.

I also managed to convince the manager to set up another loom in the same premises so that my work could move faster and I could often visit to try some experiments. We produced some great fabric together.

But despite the fact that they lacked sustained orders, I found the attitude of the “marketing” personnel strange and annoying. They were forever sitting in the office and lording it over the weavers who came to collect monies that were due under numerous government schemes.

I had learnt to ignore them and deal directly with the weavers. But I couldn’t do that for too long. Once, one of my orders that was on the loom was almost finished. So I paid for it and told a marketing person to deliver the fabric. He agreed and I returned home expecting the delivery in a couple of days. When it did not arrive, I called the office and was told that I would need to wait because the weather was too hot for cycling with 60 metres of fabric!

I severed my ties with them and started a search again. I found a cluster of weavers 30 km away and have been working with them for the last four years. But recently, I got a call from the manager of the cooperative requesting me to “save” the organisation. I told him that there was no room or need for the drama, but I would certainly visit to understand what the problem was.

I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at the office on the appointed day. The one room housed six looms and the building now had another floor that housed the marketing department. The marketing department had the same people, the same wooden and glass showcase and the tin trunk. They must be doing well, I thought, if they had managed to build another storey, all freshly painted.

The weavers were happy to see me, the two marketing guys were obviously not and the manager was the master of ceremonies. He again started about how I could save them (word had gotten around about how I had managed to popularise the khesh fabric by introducing more versatile weaving). I reiterated that I had no capacity to “save” them but would be available for imparting any wisdom that might help.

At the meeting, I started by asking the most basic question. “Do you have a problem with production, sales or marketing?” “Marketing,” came the reply in chorus. “So what have the sales figures been lately?” I asked the manager. Not very impressive, he said. But I need a figure to begin an analysis, I insisted. “Well, in September we did Rs 2,800” (my purchases that morning while I was waiting for the weavers to gather to start the meeting). I masked my amusement and asked about August. He repeated that it wasn’t impressive. I was getting irritable and said no discussion would be possible unless I had some facts.

He looked at the cash book for a long time, then looked up and said revenue in August was Rs 55!