Wiederaufbau des Weberdorfs Ghantasala
Prof. Mark Lindley besucht das mit den Spenden des Bundes für Geistesfreiheit (bfg) München wiederaufgebaute Weberdorf Ghantasala
"Here are some explanatory comments on the photos. They were taken during my visit, one day early last March, to the handloom weavers' colony at a village called Ghantasala, an hour or two by jeep from Srikakulam. This is one of three such colonies (the other two are in the same district of Andhra Pradesh) which Arthik Samata Mandal (ASM) helped - partly by means of bfg money - to recover after that cyclone three years ago. A generation or two ago, the weavers had created these villages on some low-lying wasteland, because they could no longer survive in previous settlements where they had had to pay rent. ASM began in 1990 to serve them in one way and another. (in 1994, for instance, Veeraiah invited to Srikakulam a well-known London designer who, after seeing how they worked, devised some new patterns for fabrics to sell in fashionable Western boutiques.) But then the cyclone destroyed their home and equipment (as can be seen in the colors photos that I sent with the initial appeal after the cyclone).
No 1 is a group-photo taken a few minutes after my arrival
No. 2 shows the interior of a new, cyclone-proof building - you can readily see the bricks-and -cement wall - the construction of which was paid for by bfg-donated funds. It is a rather tall building (as tall as the lobby of a grand hotel) to house a wooden machine - a big wheel-like octagon, more than a meter wide - for aligning in proper order the vertical threads for this or that fabric-design. this building and equipment belong to the villagers in common.
Nos. 3 and 4 show two types of loom: No. 3, a traditional type; No 4 a newer type built with advice and a subvention from ASM. the traditional type has two (and only two) thick legs, stuck in the ground; the weaver sits on the ground, with his feet at the bottom of a trench. The advantage of this type is that it's cheap and does not call for use of a chair (a luxury for these folk); the disaventage, which happens to be very considerable in these low-lying villages, is that one cannot weave during the mossoon season: the ground is too soggy.
No. 5 was taken toward the end of my visit. I was introduced to a woman and told that she was the head of a village women's group founded with ASM encouragement; I immediately asked for a photo to be taken of us shaking hands. You can see (if you look closely) that to shake hands was, for her an exotic custom. Of course I intended it to express implicitly that women are nowadays categorically equal to men and that this new equality is important.
No. 6 was taken as I left: the village head gave me, as a token of thanks, a coconut with its top cut off and a straw inserted so that I could have a cool (and safe) drink; and he made a brief, coherent and eloquent speech, saying that ASM and bfg have transformed the lives of the weavers and their families. Indeed, the main thing I learned by visiting is these folk were formerly desperate but now regard themselves as successful and progressive. Some families are even letting their daughters go to school".