Even before reduce, reuse and recycle became the environmental watchwords, Birbhum, the district that Santiniketan falls under, had a tradition of recycled textiles. While Birbhum shares with many other areas of both West Bengal and Bangladesh the tradition of the “kantha” or the quilt made by layering old saris, the tradition of “Khesh” is quite unique to Birbhum and adjoining areas.
The Khesh technique is weaving with old saris by tearing them into thin strips. The warp uses new thread and the weft uses these strips of saris. Since the weavers first tear the saris and keep them in a heap next to the loom, the weaving is with whatever strip the weaver happens to pick up from the pile while weaving.
The Khesh weaving process is simple. The warp is with new yarn and the weft is with strips of thin cloth obtained by tearing old saris length wise.
Because of the tradition of Khesh weaving in Birbhum in the last many years, a market for old saris has come up in Amodpur, where old saris can be bought in bulk by weavers. Many weavers also have their suppliers who gather them from villages, wash them and sell them ready for tearing. Many other weavers depend on householders to give them saris which get woven into bedcovers for a fee.
The old saris have to be of cotton in order that they tear easily. Experiments using synthetic saris have also been undertaken, since the propensity to wear synthetic saris is on the rise even in villages. But the problem with synthetic saris is that they cannot be torn by hand and have to be cut by scissors. This increases the time for this process and therefore the cost.
The tearing process which is as labour intensive as weaving, is typically done by female members of the weaver’s household. Some shortcuts have been found to make the process less tedious and time consuming. The sari is first torn into five or six parts lengthwise. One end of each part, say about five inches is then torn into strips. The tearer then picks out alternate strips and holds them together in one hand, and the remaining in the other hand. He then pulls in two opposite directions giving him many strips at one go. Typically, a sari yields about seventy-five to eighty strips.
Once the old saris are torn into thin strips, the weaver hangs these strips beside him for easy access and weaves with whichever he picks up randomly. And therein lies the beauty of the Khesh fabric, the design person or the weaver can only specify the colour of the warp. The colour of the weft is completely a matter of chance. Only when the fabric is woven can one appreciate how the colours in the old saris have blended into the new fabric.
The weaving can of course be done either intensely with the old saris or with gaps in between depending on the effect desired.
Many of the traditional weavers in Birbhum who have learnt the craft from their fathers agree on the fact that the technique of weaving with shreds of old saris, called “Khesh”, was started in Shilpa Sadan in the early 1920s. This was the vocational training centre that Rabindranath Tagore had set up in Sriniketan, adjacent to Santiniketan which was where his academic institute, Visva Bharati was set up.
Since Khesh was traditionally woven with thick or “pakano” thread, weavers completely ruled out any possibility of success of weaving with fine yarn. But perseverance paid off and one weaver, agreed to try a sari. White fine yarn is always on the loom for weaving fine yardage, so it was decided to try a white sari with khesh pallu.
When it got off the loom, however, it was felt the pallu had become too heavy compared to the rest of the sari. The experiment was repeated with spacing out the old sari lines in the pallu instead of intense weaving for the full one metre of the pallu. And a few stripes of Khesh were also added in the body of the sari and the balance was just so.
It was then repeated in many colours and the Khesh sari became a fashion statement. Now many weavers sell the sari to mainstream retail outlets both in Birbhum and outside. The Khesh weaving cluster around Labhpur in Birbhum has truly benefited from this new usage of an old tradition.
