On a humid afternoon in Surla, Goa, 20 women gather around a wooden loom, their bangles tapping against cotton threads. At the centre sits 42-year-old Usha Datta Gadi, a former domestic worker and an unlikely custodian of the Kunbi sari, once worn by Goa’s tribal women in the fields. She is now pulling the Kunbi back into existence, one weave at a time.
“I was the first to learn to weave the Kunbi in Goa,” Gadi says proudly, her fingers moving steadily over the warp and weft. “This learning has given my life meaning. The weaving is so minute, meticulous and detailed… I felt blind earlier,” she laughs. “Now, after working on the threads, the exercise has given me better eyesight.”
The Kunbi sari was made for utility: porous cotton suited to humid weather, earthy checks marking community identity, the dethli knot resting on the shoulder, the pallu tucked high above the knees for work in paddy fields. Traditionally worn without blouses, its use declined sharply after Portuguese mandates in the 1940s enforced blouse-wearing and changing ideas of “modern” dressing entered Goa. As the sari disappeared from everyday life, so did the knowledge needed to reproduce it.
But Gadi was unwilling to let the weave vanish. She began relearning the craft in a small cowshed. Today, that revival has spread to Dhariwada, Velim, Pernem, Shiroda and Assonora, where women are training, weaving and selling four to five saris a month, some finished with reshmi threads for festive occasions. “Today we have 20 women, four looms and a timetable so we all get time,” says Gadi. “We could be more productive if we had more looms… I even went to the CM’s office demanding equipment.” One sari takes six to seven days to complete.
For the women involved, the work is both labour and inheritance. Rakshanda Kondvilkar, a weaver from Velim, says the process demands patience and precision. “Kunbi has many designs we can learn. But it is difficult and take time. If the thread breaks, we start again, so we need quality threads.”
Designers, too, have begun to take note. For Goa-based designer Suzette Advani, the Kunbi sari represents both climate wisdom and cultural memory. “It’s the perfect depiction of our original culture and weather — colourful, porous enough to tolerate a tropical climate, draped to facilitate hard work. The only way to carry forward a legacy is to adapt without losing the essence.”
A plain Kunbi sari sells for around `3,500, while one woven with reshmi thread costs about `4,500, with orders coming from Mumbai and even the US. Yet revival alone cannot sustain a craft. The women still struggle with limited machinery, poor-quality yarn and the absence of large-scale mentoring or market support. For Gadi, however, the achievement is already tangible. “People order from us as our saris are excellent quality,” she says, “I found my purpose in life. Many blessings have come thanks to the Kunbi sari.”
