: With One Email, Kalamkari Weaver Lives Dad’s Dream Makes the 400-YO Craft International #IndiaNEWS India welcomed the internet in 1986 but it was only a decade later when the dot-com bubble penetrated

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With One Email, Kalamkari Weaver Lives Dad’s Dream Makes the 400-YO Craft International #IndiaNEWS
India welcomed the internet in 1986 but it was only a decade later when the dot-com bubble penetrated our lives, as VSNL became an internet service provider in 1995. Towards the end of the ’90s, there was a lot of change associated with the internet as Rediff. com opened India’s first cybercafe in Mumbai, internet banking was started by ICICI and the railway reservation system was linked nationwide.
In the new millenium, as giant entities were exploring the benefits of the internet, a small-time weaver in Andhra Pradesh was on the cusp of altering the scene of Kalamkari art form with the help of the World Wide Web.
In 2001, Pitchuka Srinivas spotted an ad on IndiaMart for the requirement of Kalamkari fabric by a woman named Mary Bergtold Mulcahy based in New York.
Srinivas, who was in his late 20s, responded, “Madam, I would love to show you my work. I just cannot afford to send samples. �
The short but sincere email left Mary, a former fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, impressed. She chose Srinivas among several other weavers to collaborate with and sent him US dollars to courier the samples of Kalamkari printing art. The images of the samples were published in a national magazine that was well received by the fashion industry.
Mary, founder of Les Indiennes and Kalamkari artisan, Srinivas. Source
This inspired Mary to start selling the indigenous fabric in her store ‘Les Indiennes’ in 2002. She sold home decor items like table linens, pillows, bedding and cushion covers with Kalamkari imprints.
Meanwhile, Srinivas couldn’t believe that a 400-year-old art native to Indian textiles got international recognition via a powerful thing called the internet.
“I met Mary two years after we collaborated and most of our exchanges took place over email,� says Srinivas, a third-generation weaver, whose grandfather weaved on diapers and his father began his career as a clerk.
He adds, “My home-cum-workshop and the local cyber cafe became my place of worship. Besides the designs, it was my process and raw materials that impressed Mary the most. I was using 16th-century organic materials and the labour-intensive block printing technique. I am the only person in the village using chemical-free, certified organic fabric and yarn. �
Srinivas (left) and his son, Varun (right) hosting international guests 
The 52-year-old credits his father’s method that helped him take over Les Indiennes and ensure a monetary growth of 60 per cent. If today, the Kalamkari fabrics of Srinivas are exported to countries like Japan, Netherlands, UK, USA and Germany, that is because he explored modern innovations while keeping intact the traditional values.

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