When Madras Checks meet African memory: inside the Siddi women’s kavand quilt tradition

Hanaphabi and Saidambi Naik, 2 middle-aged women from the Kalaghatgi taluk in Karnataka’s Dharwad district, were restless astatine archetypal to talk successful beforehand of a camera. A fewer whisper-filled moments later, Saidambi took the pb successful telling their communicative of stitching memory.

“We are some from the Siddi assemblage successful northbound Karnataka but our origins are successful Sindh, Pakistan and parts of Africa. We person near our colony to travel to Chennai to amusement our kavands (quilts),” Saidambi says successful the Siddi dialect, which has a premix of words borrowed from Konkani, Marathi, Kannada, Urdu and Hindi.

The 2 women seldom get the accidental to permission their colony due to the fact that the assemblage tends to distrust outsiders. Bearing distinctly African features, the Siddis person been historically discriminated against by colonisers and locals alike. “We sometimes question to our relatives’ houses adjacent to our villages but otherwise, we conscionable enactment successful the fields and stitch the quilts,” says Hanaphabi.

Since 2015-16, arsenic their quilts started to beryllium recognised arsenic crafts, Siddi women person been dilatory venturing extracurricular their villages to showcase their craft. Leading the mode is art historiographer and community practitioner Anitha N. Reddy, who has been moving with the community, crossed 15-20 villages. Reddy archetypal saw a kavand at a friend’s location successful the Western Ghats, 15 years ago. “During a travel to a Siddi village, I had fixed distant a clump of my apparel to my friend’s family. The adjacent clip I arrived, I was admiring a quilt that my friend’s woman had stitched. She pointed to the blanket, showing maine scraps of my apparel which had made it to the piece. It was amusing but besides captivating,” she says.

That acceptable Reddy connected a travel of knowing the quilt. Elaborating connected the value of the kavand, Saidambi says, “The astir ornate quilts are reserved for marriages. It is an heirloom passed connected to our daughters. If you bash not instrumentality a quilt to your in-laws’ house, you mightiness not beryllium treated well. You volition besides not person a expanse to screen yourself with successful the winter. We besides marque quilts for our newborns.”

In December, the duo, on with 20 others, came to Chennai’s DakshinaChitra depository to display 50 colourful, tiled quilts arsenic a portion of Threads of Confluence, a travelling exhibit. For the archetypal time, the Siddi women, made usage of Madras Checks, a chiseled cloth from the erstwhile Madras Presidency, successful their hand-stitched kavands. Madras Checks person been exported the satellite implicit since the 16th century.

No two kavands ever look similar. One tin find Roman alphabets similar ‘A’, ‘E’ and ‘H’ arsenic a portion of the mix. “To the Siddis, it is simply a design,” says Reddy. What was erstwhile a instrumentality for endurance is present an art, and a imaginable livelihood.

Meeting of 2 worlds

Bringing the Siddi quilters’ trade and Madras Checks cloth unneurotic was the brainchild of Anitha Pottamkulam, manager (culture), DakshinaChitra, who roped successful Reddy, and the manufacturers of the cloth, Old Madras Trading Company (OMTC).

Although the Madras Checks and the Siddis bash not overlap successful history, there’s a metaphorical connection. If the Siddis were brought to India from Africa, the Madras Checks travelled to the Caribbean from India via the assemblage commercialized way of the Coromandel Coast. Now a premium fabric, this peasant/fisherman covering from 12th period Madraspatnam colony (later Madras/Chennai), near the shores of a colonised India centuries later, and became fashionable successful 1960s America.

“When Anitha [Pottamkulam] and I spoke astir this grounds coming to Chennai, we realised that we’d similar to incorporated an constituent from the city. The vibrant Madras Checks, a cloth with affluent history, was our cloth of choice. It has a agelong past of export from South India to galore parts of the world, and is particularly viewed arsenic a awesome of prestige successful the African nations,” says Reddy.

Before it went to the Caribbean and became a portion of nationalist costume, Madras Checks went to Africa. Reddy adds, the Real Madras Handkerchief was known as injiri meaning ‘real India’ and was utilized by the Nigerian Kalabari people to wrapper babies.

Rising from scraps

For the exhibit, OMTC provided the fabric. Its co-founder Ranvir Shah, who is successful the pursuit of reviving archetypal hand-woven handloom Madras fabric, now owns these 55 quilts. Until now, the leftover garment-fabric bits were utilized for making stuffed toys. This time, the scraps were chopped up and utilized to make eclectic, tetris-like patterns by Siddi women. At their Chennai factory, the fabric-weavers and the Siddi quilters interacted done songs successful their parent tongues, successful the lack of a communal language.

The historically poor Siddis, with lone immoderate assigned the Scheduled Tribe status, person struggled to physique a beingness extracurricular of their economical constraints. The purpose is survival. “The main volition for them to travel to Chennai was to recognize their past with the materiality,” Reddy says. Both Shah and Reddy are keen connected putting this quilting contented from South India connected the planetary map. While Shah is selling and exhibiting the kavind quilts made utilizing their Madras Checks, Reddy is separately doing different shows with these Siddi quilters, which are not associated with OMTC. She says, “Some women person travelled successful India to akin exhibits, and thatch different creation practitioners their quilting style. It has made them worth themselves more.” She hopes to take a fistful of Siddi women and their quilts to The International Folk Art Market successful Santa Fe, U.S. Currently, the grounds is astatine Kadari Art Gallery, Telangana, till February 19.

Despite the information that galore of them are earning done the craft, Hanaphabi and Saidambi are “not definite however this is going to lick their bigger problems” of excessive rains and terrible flooding and landslides uprooting homes and lives. A acquisition from these women is their resilience arsenic they find joyousness successful learning the creation of stitching.

For details astir the travelling exhibit, travel @anithanreddy connected Instagram

sanjana.g@thehindu.co.in