[papr23]

We have been living in our holiday home near Vijayawada for the past few months. Despite being compulsive travelers and armed with our first car- Kia Seltos 1.5P, we have been kept waiting for our first multi-day tour in the Seltos by the pandemic. We stuck to exploring places that can be covered in a day. Recently we drove to Pedana, a quaint little town known for Kalamkari style of block-printed textiles. It is only 70km from Vijayawada and lies just outside Machilipatnam.

Kalamkari involves wooden blocks with intricately carved designs. These are dipped in plant based dyes and printed on the fabric. Sounds easy, right? No! It is a tedious and time-consuming process. First, the fabric needs to be softened and bleached so that the fabric catches the color perfectly without any smudges. This takes around 3 days time. The preparation of natural dyes can take few weeks. A mixture of various natural elements like leaves, roots, barks etc., processed and stored for many days will result in a dye. Once the printing is done, the fabric is again treated over multiple steps for fixing and saturating the colors.

This exquisite style of textile printing was rewarded with a Geographical Indications (GI) tag few years back.
As Kalamkari products are hand-crafted, sometimes the pattern alignment can be off resulting in slight imperfections and that is a beautify in itself!

[papr23]

A quick search pointed us to one Mr Pitchuka Srinivas' workshop (marked as Coromandel Kalamkari in Google Maps) which is one of the very few places which still produces Kalamkari products in the original art form.

The workshop is 90km from my place and we started at 9AM, hoping to reach by 1030AM. There are 2 routes off the Vijayawada-Machilipatnam highway. Take the bypass road at the end of the highway or take a left at Guduru for 10km through rural roads. We chose the latter and were rewarded with some views which we least expected and stopped quite often. The final 10km took nearly 90 beautiful minutes!

[papr23]

Finally we reached the workshop by noon and the staff was friendly and answered all our queries. Most of the staff was engaged in printing bandannas. These are mostly exported all over the world. Mr Srinivas also supplies to a store called Les Indiennes in New York.

Below are a bunch of pics that take you through the making of Kalamkari products:

This is the first step. The fabric is softened & naturally bleached using Myrabalan seeds (karakkai in telugu) which acts as a dye fixative. This ensures the color attachment to the fabric without any smudges when printed.


This takes 3-4 days


The fabric is then set to dry in the sun


Once dry, the fabric is ready for printing.


Intricately carved patterns on teak wood


The workshop has a huge repository of blocks


Dye & the wooden block for printing


As per the GI tag, Kalamkari should use only organic dyes


The olive green looking dye will turn indigo after drying in the sun


These rusted metal strips are used for making black colored dye along with jaggery and salt water

Red dye is obtained from Manjistha (roots of madder plant). Brown is a mix of red and black. Pomegranate peel is used for greenish-yellow shade. Flowers of sacred tree or Flame of the Forest is used in making various hues of yellow and orange. And indigo plant is used for the rich shades of blue.
As the ingredients for dye making are naturally obtained, it is not possible to make the same shade of color each time.

[papr23]

Different types of blocks are used for different types of the design. For example, a background block is usually dipped in black. It is then filled with a color using a filler block.

It was quite fascinating seeing them work with precision on complex patterns. No boundaries or markings are done on the fabric. They just go dip-print-dip-print on and on quickly


Once the printing is done, the fabric is again left to dry in the sun

Once the paint dries, the fabric is washed in a canal or pond with fresh water. This removes the excess dye. Flowing water is preferred as it prevents smudging. The closest steam is from Krishna River which is nearly 40km from Pedana in a village called Kuchipudi. Heard the name before? Yes, it is Pedana's neighbor.

The next step is boiling the cloth in copper vessels along with flowers, roots, leaves etc to intensify the color.


Rice husk is used to fire the copper vessel


Bandannas that went through all the above steps

[papr23]

We spent good couple of hours at the workshop and purchased tote bags, bedsheets, fabric for stitching and bandannas. We went around driving through the town and most shops have textiles created with digital technique called screen printing using large stencils. It is quite ironic and sad to see shops selling these in the home of Kalamkari violating the GI tag. These can very well be termed FAKE.

Just like any ancient art form, Kalamkari too is struggling to compete in the digital era. To reduce production time and thereby cost, many artisans are going digital. Designs are being created digitally and stencils are made from it. Wooden blocks are being replaced by these stencils. Natural dyes are being replaced by chemical colors. This brings down the product cost and has taken over the market and the authentic Kalamkari products are rare to be found. Also, it is difficult to differentiate hand block-printed Kalamkari with the one printed using stencils.

It is not uncommon to see fabric dried out in open spaces in the town


Lengthwise weaving


I could see 3-4 shops selling photos which ward off evil eyes. Gods, animals, demons and actress too!


We returned via Machilipatnam and picked the famed Bandar Halwa on the way. There is no monkey business here. Machilipatnam has a port and is also known as Bandar!

Finally, do you believe in supporting ancient art forms or okay buying products that are created using methods that evolved over time?

[Eddy]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing.

[Chillout]

Nice travelogue and wish more people make these trips and help the local artisans stick to their traditional craft, else this will also be lost to the digital era.

[ashis89]

Nice travelogue about this quaint little town. I wasn't aware of Kalamkari (though my wife knows) and it was interesting to read about the technique, especially the natural dyes and washing in a flowing river.

Next time I go to Vijayawada, I will try to make a visit and witness this first hand.

[Lalitha Venkat]

Indeed a very valuable trip Papr. I strongly agree that we should support products that have been anciently used. You can never match the organic Kalamlari prints. The feel and visual appeal thats on those fabric is unmatched. A big thumbs up to you. I am sure there will several travel vlogs that come on the forum to such kind of places in the future

[Raghuwire]

Such a beautiful travelogue. It is really nice, thanks for sharing. Is there a way for us to buy directly from these manufacturer? I would not mind spending a bit more if the authenticity, organic dyes and is a verified handloom.

[rajarams]

Thanks for sharing. Very nice to see travelogues on such unique, offbeat places.

[Ironhide]

What a beautiful thread, and so well illustrated through aptly placed pictures ! It was indeed enlightning and you have a flair for colourful and interesting reporting - you must do more such travelogues / reports .

Once again - Bravo !

[papr23]

Originally Posted by Raghuwire

Such a beautiful travelogue. It is really nice, thanks for sharing. Is there a way for us to buy directly from these manufacturer? I would not mind spending a bit more if the authenticity, organic dyes and is a verified handloom.

Thanks, Raghuwire! My wife has purchased online from Mr. Srinivas a small piece of fabric that is ready for block-printing few years back. You may try reaching out to him or his son: kalamkari.srinu at gmail dot com, kalamkari.varun at gmail dot com. However, I believe their main concentration right now is exporting their products.

I have seen few news articles which describe him as the lone crusader:
https://www.thehindu.com/society/his...le29469634.ece

So not sure if there are any other artisans. Went around Pedana and all the other stores were selling screen printed Kalamkari only. After returning home from Pedana, out of curiosity, checked the Geographical Indications Registry website and found few who got themselves an Authorized User No. There is no email ID or phone numbers available though.

http://ipindiaservices.gov.in/GIRPub...ion/Details/90

[911CarerraS]

Thanks for sharing such a nice Travelogue. I just love offbeat places and destinations, I would love to visit Pedena whenever I get a chance . By the way, how was the performance of 1.5 NA? Did it feel underpowered anywhere? Do let us know about the performance of the car during the trip

[papr23]

Originally Posted by 911CarerraS

Thanks for sharing such a nice Travelogue. I just love offbeat places and destinations, I would love to visit Pedena whenever I get a chance . By the way, how was the performance of 1.5 NA? Did it feel underpowered anywhere? Do let us know about the performance of the car during the trip

Thanks, 911CarerraS! 1.5NA is an adequate engine with linear power delivery and does not feel under-powered. It doesn't excite you and best for sedate driving. I anyway stay away from aggressive overtaking maneuvers, so I don't have any issues with the performance. The only time it felt sluggish was when 5 adults travelled with a loaded boot and required extra inputs on the A-pedal.