Pichwai Hand Painted Nandsundari Saree 002

Nandsundari sarees are an initiative taken up by us to give a new product to the weavers of Delhi. Project Nandsundari was initiated after reading a report on the dying handloom sector of Delhi. These weavers were relocated to the Nandnagari and Sundernagri area of Delhi’s outskirts sometime in the 70’s. These weavers had been weaving yardage, bedsheets etc on order basis. 

As time passed their orders diminished, not a very skilled lot neither a well-known product to show off, lack of work compelled them to move on to other professions and stop weaving. Today very few weavers can be seen working on handlooms in this area. As I visited the place in 2018 we realised more weavers had moved on. A sad but real situation. 

 We started this project with one of the master weavers in Sundernagri in May’17, encouraging them to make sarees. Overcoming various problems related to the product, weaver skills, material and cost of production we have come a long way. The sarees are a comfortable wear, can be carried for the day, graceful with a good drape. Weighing between 500-600gms, we are still making them on handlooms using reed of 36count. The warp used in these sarees is 2/40 cotton. We have been experimenting with the weft yarns. 

We have till now used singles 20 cotton in the beginning to singles 40, 2/20 and 2/40 count yarns in the weft. We have also used kala cotton yarn from Gujarat for the weft and results are beautiful.

 Since our concerns with the quality of weaving have mostly been resolved we are now trying to get into designing the sarees by using more colours, arranging the stripes, experimenting with borders etc. 

This collection of Nandsundari sarees is decorated by beautiful gond painting made by our Gond artists.

People of Gond tribe are very close to nature and they celebrate nature and natural beauty by painting whatever they see aound them on the walls of their settlements. These paitings adorning their houses were made using colours derived from natural sources. Most Gond tribals have now realised the importance of their art and moved on to working on commercial products.

Artist: Vijay Shyam