Anindita Basak (43) is on her way to Sonajhuri haat in Bolpur, some three hours away from Kolkata by train, and very near Tagore’s Shantiniketan. This haat or open-air market is a weekly affair every Saturday and named so as it is held on the red lateritic stretches of the valley, under the ever so pretty Sonajhuri trees.
Artists and micro-entrepreneurs from the nearby villages assemble here every Saturday with their wares, arts and artifacts, terracotta jewellery, clay or wooden kitchen accessories, simple musical instruments, toys, clothes, and even food items—all made by hand. This is a place for micro-level exchange and entrepreneurship as it is for the sharing of art and heart.
Anindita, a designer herself, belongs here with her love for earthy handloom, the simplest of crafts. “I come here every week and launch all my innovations, experiments and new designs,” she says over phone from her workshop in Ballygunge in south Kolkata.
One wouldn’t nurse any doubt about her relevance in this space after a glance at her range of creations, from the earliest days in 2007 till now, from wooden and beadwork jewellery handcrafted bags and accessories, to the kantha stitch silk and tussar saris and appliqué on cotton saris. However, the pinnacle of her success in design probably comes from her innovative take on the use of the humble gamcha, a piece of coarsely woven cotton loom used as a towel in Bengal.
For Anindita, a start was made when she was still a child. “Every woman in the family—my mother, my aunts, sisters—all had a tailoring/sewing machine of their own. We never wore any store-bought clothes while growing up. Everything was designed and created by them,” Anindita recollects. In school, she helped the other girls finish their craft and stitching projects, and soon she was crafting handmade jewellery and accessories out of unusual materials.
Talking about her journey with Roopkatha, her brand and her work with the handloom, she says, “I was tremendously inspired by Bibi Russell, the Bangladeshi fashion designer who had started working with the modest gamcha. Plus, I have a special interest to make beautiful designs and pretty patterns from the material and stuff that are mostly neglected.”
So she picks up the cotton khes (a light material made from cotton saris following a typical weaving style) and combines it with the Gurjari pattern to create kurtas with a personality, or picks up the modest cotton sari and adds to it a jamdaani sample, or embroiders unusual patterns on the famous Banarasi silk.
“When I started working with the gamcha back in 2011-12, there weren’t many takers. Although there were a few who jumped at the idea and have remained loyal to the products over the years, there were a few who looked at the gamcha-inspired designs sceptically, and most politely rejected it. Not anymore. Now, her gamcha blouses, kurtis and saris have become popular pieces of art and craft.