Mahatma Gandhi had said, “Take to spinning to find peace of mind. The music of the wheel will be as balm to your soul. I believe that the yarn we spin is capable of mending the broken warp and woof of our life”.
Jahnavi Pai, a Bengaluru-based ecologist, agrees and says she finds it very meditative to spin the yarn on a charkha. Like most urban consumers, she thought that buying and wearing handloom is the only thing she could do to save it. Soon, she realised it was time to go beyond passive consumerism and the simplest way to do it was to learn to spin. “I don’t know if there are any health benefits as such. It is definitely great for the health of the economy and ecosystem,” says Pai, who learnt the skill from Madhav Sahasrabudhe in Pune in 2016.
Being instrumental in organising one of Bengaluru’s first charkha spinning workshop, Pai points out that her group does not have a name or a Facebook page. “Through networks, we connect with like-minded people. Over the last one year, 70 people in the city have learnt to spin. More workshops have been lined up for this year,” she says.
“Madhav ji had said that even if there are two people who are genuinely interested in learning, he can come down from Pune to teach. At the end of our first workshop, we made a Facebook post and soon many people expressed interest in joining the next workshop,” she recollects. “Participants, who attended our four workshops, later organised them at their homes and at their friends’ places.”
The workshop that lasts for two days is always led by Sahasrabudhe, who travels across the country to teach spinning. “He also spins everyday and wears clothes made by his wife from the yarn spun by him,” says Pai.
With curiosity and passion towards handmade products, Jahnavi explains that learning to spin is like learning to cycle. “The first day of learning is definitely challenging, which can be either very frustrating to very enjoyable. It usually takes some time to get a hang of it,” explains the 35-year-old.
The charkhas can cost anywhere between `1,500 and `2,000, but the spinning group says that it is not necessary to own a charkha for the workshop. However, they all agree that one needs to continue to practice every day to master the art and for that it is necessary to own a charkha.
In the true spirit of khadi, the idea is to be able to exchange yarn for cloth, she says. “At our last workshop held at the khadi weaving centre in Janapada Seva Trust, Melukote, the yarn that was spun during the workshop was woven into cloth. The trust has agreed to accept yarn in return of cloth.”
Meeting up is spontaneous but workshops need a lot of planning. The meeting point for this group varies, sometimes indoors and also outdoors at times. The team says that since their teacher Sahasrabudhe needs to travel from Pune, which he does only by train, they plan the workshops three months in advance. “Besides tickets, the charkhas need to be ordered either from Wardha or Ahmedabad and that takes time,” says Pai.
Unanimously everyone in the group says that they find spinning a magical experience; it will help save our crafts and even push our boundaries of what it means to be ecologically conscious.