For the love of quilts...

Regional fabrics

Various types of quilts can be found in different parts of India. But with the exception of the famous Jaipur quilt, very few of these handmade quilts are likely to survive for long.

From the rural areas of Gujarat and Rajasthan come the godadi quilts. This quilt uses old, torn, faded pieces of cloth from garments like dhoti, sari, odhani, dupatta, ghagra. Such quilts are also common in the drier parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka. The warmth from the multiple layers of the fabric, made extra soft with use, can easily outshine expensive woollen blankets. Smaller and thinner godadis are used for newborn babies.

The lasingphee quilt (or quilted cotton material) of Assam and Manipur is woven on a flying shuttle loom. These are extremely warm and soft. This quilting material has an inner lining of cotton, which is stuffed at regular intervals between the parallel strips of weft cloth. In Assam, very thinly sliced bamboo shavings are sometimes used in place of cotton.

Ralli quilts come from North India and Pakistan, and they are now gaining international recognition. The name ‘ralli’ is thought to be a derivative of the word, ‘ralannu’, which means to mix, join, or connect. Ralli quilts are mainly made in Rajasthan and in the Sindh province of Pakistan. But today, it is losing its market share to mill-made products. Same is the case with the famous kantha quilt of Bengal.

Only in the case of the famous Jaipuri razai, the market seems to thrive. Incredibly soft, light and warm, this quilt’s beginnings are unknown. There are three varieties of Jaipuri quilts in the market, namely cotton, velvet and silk. Quilting is the sole purview of women and three or four standard patterns have been in vogue for as long as anyone can remember.

In Jaipur alone, there are around 200 quilt shops, out of which 50 are exclusively for selling Jaipur products. Jaipurs quilt market sees a daily business of eight million rupees, and it is only likely to grow in the next few years.

But that is not the case with dozens of other indigenous handmade blankets of India, which are losing ground to modern mill-made blankets, that cost a fraction of the cottage industry blankets. A case in point is the gongadi blanket of Telangana. Gongadi is a woollen blanket, woven from the wool of the sheep breed found in the Deccan region of South-Central India, which includes regions of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. It is reared by the sheep herding pastoral communities of this semi–arid region — kurumas of Andhra, kuruvas of Karnataka and dhangars of Maharashtra.

The traditional gongadi is a 8x4-feet-long blanket that is folded into two and shaped into a conical hat. It is used by pastoral shepherds to protect themselves from the heat and cold of the semi-arid region, or as a mackintosh to weather the rain, or as a travelling pouch to carry food or grain, or even for a newborn lamb.

Simultaneously, with the introduction of cheaper mill-made blankets in the market, the demand for gongadis diminished. The Indian Army, major buyers of these coarse black blankets, stopped buying them. Consequently, the craft of weaving gongadis began to dwindle, till it was almost lost. Only recently attempts have been made to revive this ancient handicraft.