Learn to weave from weavers themselves at Chennimalai’s Nurpu Handloom Collective

Nurpu Handloom Collective in Chennimalai offers handloom weaving workshops to preserve traditional craft and empower weavers.

‘The music of the wheel will be as balm to our soul’: sitting cross-legged at Nurpu Handloom Collective’s school at Chennimalai on a windy afternoon, these words by Gandhi come rushing to the mind. The school is home to two ancient teakwood frame looms, six wheel charkas, and six box charkas from Sabarmati ashram and Wardha. Here, anyone interested in the nuances of hand loom can learn to weave from weavers themselves. C Sivagurunathan, who started the collective, settles behind the frame loom to show how a sari is woven.

The collective was inaugurated last month by writer B Jeyamohan and Santhosh Koulagi of Janapada Seva Trust in Melukote, Karnataka. It is Sivaguru’s dream of seven years, one that pushed him to give up a cushy IT job in Chennai. Sivaguru, who is from a family of weavers, started an initiative in 2016 to give handloom weavers at Erode’s 1010 Colony a new lease of life. He encouraged them to start weaving again — most of them had given up the craft since power looms took over — and helped market their fabric. But in his heart, he wanted to start a handloom school that would teach children the craft that is being forgotten, even by the weavers themselves.

Sivaguru, who works with weavers in Chennimalai, apart from Musiri in Tiruchi, gradually put together a syllabus over the years. He offers four modules: a day-long workshop, two-day sessions, seven-day and six-month internships. The two-storeyed building of the collective is located on eight cents of land in MPN Colony, named after the late MP Nachimuthu, the founder of the handloom cooperative Chentex.

The new building has soothing blue and white walls with tall French doors and windows that spill plenty of sunlight inside. The first room once one enters is the design studio with work tables and sewing machines. “Here, students of design and fashion technology can work on the fabrics to create outfits they envision,” explains Sivaguru, showing us around.

The hall, with wooden shelves along the walls and charming yellow oxide flooring, forms Nurpu’s physical store. The school with the looms is located at the back, and there is plenty of space outdoors for street sizing, a technique for strengthening yarn. The top floor has rooms for students opting to stay at the facility during training.

The first thing students are taught is how thread takes shape from cotton. The raw cotton for the same undergo ginning in a hand-ginning tool to separate seeds. This is rolled into slivers, which will be sent to the charka. “The next step is warping, followed by sizing, after which the yarn is taken to the loom,” he explains. Students opting for the week-long and six-month modules will also visit weavers at Musiri and interact with them, observing them at work from up close.

The idea is not to simply learn the craft, but also to soak in the work ethic of men and women who continue to weave against the odds. He talks about a weaver who does not sell fabrics woven after an argument with someone at home. “He believes this would affect the wearer,” he says. There are weavers for whom the outside world ceases to exist when they sit at the loom; weavers whose fabrics change in density according to the time of day they weave, giving the end product the perfect flow and texture.