The covers of children’s mattresses are made of felt. Finishing their household chores they settle before the loom at 8 a. A mélange, blending of two natural colours, is favoured. Entire families are involved in weaving and even old women, who cannot step out, sit in their mud huts and make balls of wool from the hanks of yarn, adding to the family income. Simultaneously, they interview the farmers. Though Pramila’s husband is a weaver who goes to work in a city company, the two women are the first in carpet making from the family and got their certification after learning at Mandira Utsav in 2017.A carpet for a kid&pvc floor carpet39;s room. Understandably with its focus on organic carpets, Mandira Utsav is trying to give the women that extra edge in the competitive carpet industry. Even treatment of fungus in their hooves is not allowed by dipping them in chemically medicated water. Gyan Devi has five children and the income from carpet weaving is invaluable. Keeping in mind the trend in Europe, the children’s carpets are in soft colours and at the London Fair a major incentive will be the display of the weavers’ photographs alongside the carpets they have made. Mitra’s organisation is working with 250 herders with about 1,30,000 sheep above the snowline in Himachal and Uttarakhand to ensure the organic quality of sheep. Though this is less than what they would earn working from the centre, working from home enables them to manage their household better, the cow and 10 goats they own and the farm land taken on lease. Currently, under preparation for the London Fair are 10 hand-knotted and tufted carpets for children.For the women who have chosen to work at Mandira Utsav, the wages are better, go straight into their bank accounts and there is bonhomie.
The weavers end up losing Rs 200 to Rs 300 on the Rs 1,000 carpet. Sitting at home, Gyan Devi gets orders and executes them. Her husband does labour work. Following the norms of the International Federation of Agriculture Movements on organic, no chemicals are used in the rearing of sheep for organic wool.So what is so special about organic carpets? The wool for the organic carpets is sheared off sheep raised organically. From Sundernagar, the wool goes to Bikaner where it is converted into yarn and felt.At Raipur village, Jaunpur District, a mother and daughter team of Pramila Devi (46) and Savitri (17) are working on a 2 ft by 3 ft white and green bedside carpet in a room in their hut.While Mandira Utsav has a large, airy, well-lit room where every day some 20-plus women come to learn weaving and its finer aspects or to work from 9 am to 5 pm, other women who have trained at the centre work from their homes in adjoining villages. Savtri and Pramila Devi Slowly making inroads into organic carpet making are a small band of women weavers at the Mandira Utsav training-cum-employment centre at Nai Bazar, Ashok Nagar, Bhadohi.Gyan and Gehna Devi weave carpets at their homes. Mr Sushanto Mitra of Mojopanda Exim Pvt Ltd, the brain behind the move to centre-stage the participation of women in organic carpet making at Bhadohi, says the children’s section offers a great opportunity for organic woolen products.. Both women earn about Rs 4,000 a month.With educated children of weavers going for other professions, women are increasingly becoming the backbone of the carpet industry.
