The room hums with quiet anticipation at the anniversary event of Conscious Effort India, a dialogue & design platform, held at Srishti Art Gallery. Moderated by Saachi Bahl, the panel brings together Gaurang Shah, Gaurav J Gupta, Mrunalini Rao and Anju Poddar, gathering voices from fashion, textiles, and art in a sustainability-driven conversation.
As the evening began, there is an ease as Gaurang Shah begins, almost disarming in its honesty. He speaks of starting at 11, gently correcting the oft-quoted ‘40 years’ with a smile — “I started 26 years ago at a matching centre when I was 11, but weaving came much later.” What lingers is not the number, but the image he leaves behind: a young boy surrounded by colour, instinctively learning to match, to feel. Today, that instinct has grown into a vast network spanning 16 states and thousands of artisans. And yet, beneath it all is a quiet frustration — “We don’t value our own craft. We wait for the West to tell us it’s good.”
Anju Poddar follows, her voice softer, shaped by memory and instinct rather than industry. For her, there has never been a line between art and life. “In my house, a textile hangs next to a painting… there is no distinction,” she says. Her stories drift from childhood objects like brass utensils, handworked pieces — to moments spent with MF Husain, who helped shape her understanding of art. “Everything I see gives me the same joy,” she adds, grounding her philosophy in lived experience rather than theory.
Picking up from there, Gaurav J Gupta offers a perspective that feels both personal and reflective. Calling himself ‘an accidental designer’, he traces a journey that moved away from familiar expectations into the language of textiles. “I didn’t want to do the regular BCom or MBA… I just landed here,” he says. His practice now sits between discipline and discovery, where craft becomes more than heritage, it becomes a negotiation. “Craft is slow, it’s labour-intensive… and we are living in a world that wants everything instantly,” he observes, pointing to the tension between value and accessibility.
When Mrunalini Rao speaks, the conversation returns to the garment itself. “I started by just making pretty clothes,” she admits, “But over time I realised I didn’t know what I stood for.” That shift led her towards creating pieces that feel more like art than product — layering techniques like zardozi, aari, and appliqué into garments designed to last. “I want them to be passed down,” she says simply. At the same time, she is clear-eyed about the realities, “You cannot make lakhs of these pieces… craft is a labour-intensive process.” In that limitation, she finds purpose.
With Saachi Bahl, the lens widens beyond the garment. Sustainability enters not as a passing idea, but as a responsibility. “This is one of the most polluting industries in the world,” she notes, advocating for more conscious systems and long-term thinking. Her work, spanning consultancy and platform-building, reflects an urgency to move beyond conversation into action — where fashion must not only create, but also account for its impact.
As the conversation unfolds, it begins to stretch into questions of technology, of AI, of a rapidly shifting world. There is curiosity, but also clarity. Technology may offer speed and scale, but it cannot replicate the irregularities, the emotion, the human hand that defines craft. And yet, the future isn’t framed as a conflict. It is a coexistence.
There is also a quiet shift in who the wearer is becoming. The saree once seen as tradition is returning, but differently. Younger generations are not inheriting it passively; they are reinterpreting it, styling it, making it their own. Heritage, here, is not static, it is being rewritten.
By the end, there are no grand conclusions, only a shared understanding. Craft will endure, not because it resists change, but because it holds meaning. And perhaps, that is where its future lies.