Himalayan Weavers: Woollens hand-woven by Bhotia tribe in the Himalayas find a global market yak sheep wool uttarakhand 30 stades
Sometime in the early 2000s, when Ghayur Alam was researching biodiversity conservation in Uttarakhand, he saw that many medicinal plants were becoming extinct because locals were recklessly harvesting them without permission and selling them to contractors in Delhi. He thought if there could be ways of providing alternative employment to these people, they would, perhaps, not harvest the plants, helping in biodiversity conservation.
“We found some of these people were shepherds and also worked with wool. We thought if we could help them sell woollen products at better prices, perhaps they would have less reason to go to forests to collect medicinal plants,” says Ghayur, a PhD from the University of Manchester, UK, in technology policy.
Interested in rural development, mountain agriculture and in the use of environment-friendly technologies, Ghayur and his wife Patricia decided to create a website for selling the products woven by the locals. They set up their base in village Masrana, which is between Dhanaulti and Mussoorie in Uttarakhand, and thus was born their eco-friendly enterprise - Himalayan Weavers - in 2005.
Uttarakhand’s weavers belong to the Kolees, Rompas and Bhotia or Bhotiya community, who are shepherds and mostly live in the upper reaches of the Himalayas. A lot of weaving is also done by people from Kinnaur who migrated to Bagori and Dunda many years ago.
Bhotia community, which takes sheep and goats higher up in the mountains during summers and comes down in winters, process wool and spin yarn.
A Bhotia or Bhotiya woman weaving on the loom. Pic: courtesy Himalayan Weavers
It is at this time that sheep are fat with a lot of wool, which is removed for making yarn and weaving. Uttarakhand’s major weaving centre is Dunda, near Uttarkashi, where local men and women weave shawls, carpets and other items.
When
Patricia and Ghayur tried to sell the locally woven products online, the duo
wasn’t too successful.
Clothing requirements of urban Indians and even overseas buyers are different from the traditional, heavy designs that the local tribes have been making in the Himalayas for ages.
“They don’t use many colours and if they do, most are chemical, synthetic dyes. We saw that the wool was rough, not resulting in fine woollen shawls and scarves, which are liked by customers,” says Ghayur.
By then, the
couple had developed a keen interest in wool, the dyeing process and its
weaving. “We learned through the internet how to dye using natural colours and
began dyeing in small amounts in our kitchen. There was a weaver nearby and we
got a few pieces made from him. So actually, we didn’t set out to start a
business, it just happened,” says Ghayur.
The couple
works with 25 people, of whom 10 are weavers, 8 women are involved in hand
spinning and the rest in selling and processing of the finished products. The
weaving is done using traditional pit loom, frame loom and handloom.
For making their products, Himalayan Weavers procures sheep and yak wool as well as handspun yarn from Bhotias in Dunda village as well as from the wool sellers in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh.
All the
designs for stoles, scarves and shawls are made by Patricia, who taught Drama
and English in the UK and the British School in New Delhi before settling in
Masrana.
Himalayan Weavers co-founder Patricia has contemporised the products through new designs, natural dyes and finer weaves. Pic: courtesy Himalayan Weavers
“She has a good idea about colours and patterns and we try to make very simple designs as they are aesthetically appealing. Moreover, the weavers are also comfortable with simple designs,” Ghayur says.
It is this contemporisation and use of natural dyes that has created a global market for Himalayan Weavers’ products, which have buyers in the US, Europe, Australia and many other countries.
“We sell a lot through our website. Roughly half of our products’ buyers are overseas. During winter, we sell a lot in India and the overseas demand remains throughout the year,” he says.
Himalayan
Weavers has an outlet in Masrana and another in Rajpur in Dehradun. Their
products are also bought in bulk by retail outlets in Himachal Pradesh and
Uttarakhand.
Patricia and Ghayur Alam, founders of Himalayan Weavers. Pic: through Himalayan Weavers
Its
hand-woven pashmina scarves with natural dyes start at Rs 3,500 while a piece
woven with handspun wool starts at Rs 1,300.
The Bhotia grey shawls are made with pure Himalayan wool by the people of Bagori village near Gangotri in the Himalayas and are priced at Rs2,700 for a regular shawl and Rs3,200 for a large piece.
The wool is
taken from their sheep and is handspun and hand-woven to make these shawls.
“They are not as soft as our other shawls but they are very warm and have a lot
of character,” says Ghayur.
Himalayan
Weavers also sells products hand-woven using Eri (ahimsa) silk, which is
processed without killing the silkworm.
Eco-friendly and
energy-efficient dyeing
But the couple’s biggest contribution has been in promoting the natural dyes in the Himalayas, which save the environment from synthetic colours.
Himalayan Weavers' process of natural dye-making is also energy-efficient and minimises effluents, which have created havoc in Sanganer and Jaipur in Rajasthan by contaminating groundwater aquifers.
“A lot of
people thought natural dyes would be dull and boring. But they now see that the
natural dyes give vibrant colours,” says Ghayur. Himalayan Weavers uses natural
items like tea, harada herb (chebulic myrobalan), lac, tesu or palash (flame of
the forest), indigo and madder flower to make dyes.
Ghayur says the natural dyes experiment began in their kitchen when the couple bought 2kg handspun wool from a Bhotia family in Dunda and procured madder from a seller of Ayurvedic herbs in Dehradun.
“We dyed the
wool red with madder and took the dyed yarn to a weaver in Dhanaulti and got a
few scarves hand-woven as per Patricia’s designs. Encouraged by our success
with madder, we tried other materials including tesu flowers, henna,
pomegranate reed and catechu,” he adds.
Energy-efficient dyeing process where drums are covered with electric blankets and insulated. The same water in a drum can be used for up to 6 months, minimising effluents. Pic: courtesy Himalayan Weavers
To make
dyes, we buy flowers and other herbs, boil them, extract the colour and use
drums to dye. “We have done an innovation to the dyeing process by making it
energy-efficient,” he says.
Most of the dyes in all the craft clusters of India are made on open fire, where water boils in huge vessels to which yarn is added. They are continuously stirred with hands to ensure even dyeing.
“This is
very energy inefficient as you are losing a lot of heat in the open pan and
open fire. It is not good also for the person who is sitting in front of it.
Most importantly, the water is thrown away after every batch, creating the
problem of effluents.”
Himalayan Weavers has, instead, made dyeing drums - one drum for each colour – and to heat them, they are wrapped with electric blankets and covered with good insulation material to avoid any heat loss.
“So all the
heat goes into the water and since blankets use very little energy, our system
is very energy efficient. Plus, we don’t throw away water; we keep adding more
dye to it and use the same water for almost six months without throwing
anything. So our effluent production is very small.”
It also
helps in water conservation. The wool is put on hangers and left inside the
drums so no one has to stand and stir them. “It is a low temperature and slow
process; so the dyeing is very even. The blanket is on most of the time and the
water is hot. So we just dip wool and the next day we take it out and wash it,”
he says.
The eco-enterprise has no plans to scale up operations. “We don’t want to change. This is the right size for us and we keep the people fully employed,” Ghayur adds.
(Rashmi Pratap is a Mumbai-based journalist specialising in financial, business and socio-economic reporting)
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