“I have been making a living as a handloom weaver for more than 20 years now. Coming from a family of handloom weavers, I was firm about following in my community footsteps. Each of us weavers has our own workspace here and we work on a monthly basis.

My day here starts at 8 a.m. and ends at 6:30 p.m. Nowadays, because of lockdown restrictions, we are closing the work early. We make all kinds of material such as sarees, shawls, towels and handkerchiefs with pochampally ikkat patterns.

My father, grandfather, and even his grandfather used to do the same work and one must understand that Chenetha (handloom weaving) is in our blood. It is not that we earn a lot of money, but then we take pride in what we do.

The coronavirus second wave has hit us badly at the most important time as Summer is the main season for the majority of saree sales. Unless the old stock gets cleared, we won’t be able to work on the new designs.

Before the lockdown, I used to weave around 7 to 8 Pochampally sarees and earn around Rs 14,000 to Rs 17,000 per month but due to the current pandemic situation, I am only able to earn half of it.

We were hoping that the government would help us financially in times of pandemic, but there was no help apart from providing a few extra kilos of food grains. That’s okay. We will try to work even harder and fight this crisis together!”

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