This 64-year-old has resurrected livelihood of thousands of Indian weavers

Sunita Budhiraja has mobilised 30,000 people through her Six Yards and 365 days endeavour.
Sunita Budhiraja
Sunita Budhiraja

After collecting adequate pocket money, college-going Sunita Budhiraja would set out for Connaught Place.

She would skim through the display windows of the state emporiums where mannequins modelled exquisite saris.

Very soon, a design detail would catch her fancy and she would spend hours opening each fold before moving on to the other.

She had an instinct that saris would always occupy a prominent role in her life.

Today, this 64-year-old trailblazer for handlooms, has mobilised 30,000 people through her Six Yards and 365 days endeavour, to rekindle an interest in India’s wearable traditions and to resurrected the livelihood of the dying community of weavers in our country. 

She wears saris like a second skin. All through college when her peers flaunted their western garments, Budhiraja sashayed in chanderis, chikankaris and bomkai saris.

“When those around me barely knew anything about a sari, I already had a collection comprising one from every region,” she says. 

Budhiraja purchased her first sari on October 10, 1972, from Kalpana Saree while the establishment opened their first store. This was at Connaught Place. It cost her Rs 45, an expensive tag back then, but the off-white, light-green printed Kashmiri silk sari became one of her favourite buys.

“When the shop was opening, I prioritised it over everything else. Also, CP of those days was very different from what it is today. There were no shops, hardly any buildings and no traffic.”

For an aficionado like her who had grown up watching her great grandmother, grandmother, and mother, along with public figures like Indira Gandhi, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, and Maharani Gayatri Devi as role models, saris seemed like a part of her DNA.

And therefore, she wanted to see them appreciated and worn. But the exact opposite was happening, with children of weavers leaving their traditional inheritance for lucrative city jobs.

Budhiraja felt helpless, but then one day, she was struck by an epiphany. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi had just launched his Digital India campaign. A lightbulb went off and I created a Facebook community of socially conscious handloom supporters.”

That’s how the Six Yards and 365 days digital campaign was born, to encourage women to wear handloom saris the whole year and share photos of them on Facebook, with description of the weaves.

“It boosted their self-confidence because they were engaging with like-minded people. It also became a medium for knowledge sharing, and finally, it created a demand for saris as women began understanding the value of pure looms,” says Budhiraja, who began on August 15 with three members, which has now grown to 30,000 and counting. 

While digitisation has helped with better access, equitable price realisation, better chances at sustainability for weavers, it has also presented challenges.

Lack of digital infrastructure and absence of digital literacy among rural folks cannot be negated.

“Education and computerisation are changing mindsets of weavers as they don’t see their craft profitable. A job at the call centre fetches more money than sweating it out behind a loom. Having said that, the responsibility lies with each one of us. For starters, let’s invest in handlooms. By purchasing one handmade weave, you can support 70 people,” reveals Budhiraja.   

Anyone can join her virtual group and partake in the discussions.

There’s also a subgroup that meets each other and discusses concerns regarding handlooms.

Their next meeting is in September at Benaras. So sign up and come along this six-yard endless journey.

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The New Indian Express
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