Maruthamunai weavers: Bonding cultures, Jayanthi Liyanage in Kalmunai

Maruthamunai is a village situated 2.3 km away from the north of Kalmunai at the 390 mile post in the administrative division of Kalmunai Divisional Secretariat. It belongs to the Ampara District of the Eastern Province.

Maruthamunai has been known for its family-based and factory-based handloom weavers throughout the years. According to the report of the Eastern Social Mobilizing Organization (ESMO), as a result of the tsunami disaster of December 26, 2004, 366 families lost their 768 handlooms and their inputs.

The Divisional Secretariat of Kalmunai estimated the loss of weaving industry in Maruthamunai to Rs. 6.8 million. ESMO also reports that at present there are 1,084 families in Maruthamunai, engaged in producing handloom clothes.

What we see today is the degree in which the weaving industry has clambered back to being a viable industry, five years after the devastation of tsunami.

M.I. Ubaidur Rahman, Managing Director, Jahi Weavers, is one of about ten weaving industrialists in Maruthamunai. He had lived in the UK and returned to his village in 1999 at a time

when most of his people had given up weaving for not having a market

for their products. The quality of their products too had fallen. Some of the weavers were leaving Maruthamunai to work in Kurunegala.

“My grandfather, U.L. Aliyar Lebbe, was the best weaver in Maruthamunai,” Rahman told the Daily News in his home-based store of hand-woven saris, sarongs, shirtings, shalwar materials, table cloths and bed sheets, where a bevy of young women draped in abhaya, the caftans, worn without the niquab, the face veil, was busy with sewing, quality controlling, ironing, packing and looking after the finished products. “When there were weddings, my grandfather was asked to weave sarongs for them.. We have more than 100 years history of weaving.”

As he remembers, some of the weavers had obtained training in Jaffna.

Rahman began a textile business in the village town but was not satisfied as he craved to try his hand at creativity. “I asked my father and grandfather for their ideas,” he said. “They had weaving mills and had given up

weaving but they had the experience.” Rahman was also approached by a master weaver who was brimming with technical concepts. Together, they were able to obtain some conceptual input from the Industrial Development Board (IDB) in Kalmunai. “We asked them how to start the weaving industry,” Rahman said. “I was thinking about our community and how to improve the

community on weaving.” Begin a public corporation or a co-operative for the weaving community and we can help you financially and technically, the IDB told Rahman.

Products

The Eastern Provincial Director of Industrial Development in Trincomalee infused in Rahman the idea of starting a people’s company, which he did, with more than 300 people who have a history in weaving, pooling in small amounts of money. Turning out a few sample products, they went to Colombo, to meet the Director of the Department of Textiles, Vijitha Senevirathna.

“The Director was very happy,” said Rahman. “He said that he had been in office for ten years but no one from Maruthamunai or anywhere came to see him with their products.” The Director visited Maruthamunai and inspected the envisaged weaving premises. Rahman was further helped by his Member of Parliament Rauf Hakeem who arranged him to meet exporters of hand woven products. The weavers comprised 95 per cent Muslims and five per cent Tamils, Rahman said.

Beginning with five looms in 1999, the Maruthamunai weaving company was able to increase the number of looms to 25 in 2001 and to 3,000 in 2004. Then the tsunami came and wiped away most of it. “About 500 people died and more than 2,000 people gave up weaving,” said Rahman. “The weavers didn’t have a proper place for the looms and some people left for masonry jobs.” A saving hand appeared again in the guise of the Director of the Department of Textiles. He said, “Don’t give up! Start again!”

Rahman and his group revitalised weaving with ten looms in Navidanweli Divisional Secretariat Division and wove sarongs, saris, shirtings, table cloths, napkins, bed sheets and shalwar material. “The designs we had when we started, were not in the market,” he said. “Buyers did not want those designs.

From TV advertisements and modelling programs, we picked up ideas about the colours and the kind of saris and sarongs that could sell in the market. Now our products are moving very fast in Colombo and Hameedias is the main buyer.”

After the tsunami, visiting Maruthamunai in order to help the weavers, Hameedias bought hand woven cloth and used it in their costumes. Rahman said that Lanka Fabrics, No Limit and Laksala also bought their products.

Wages to the weavers are paid at piece rate. Before tsunami, although weaving a sarong cost Rs.20, in order to attract workers, Rahman paid Rs. 50 per sarong. Post-tsunami, it is Rs.150 per sarong. Wages are paid every Thursday and Friday is the customary holiday in Maruthamunai. Rahman had gone around inviting weavers to join him and he says, “Many of them have still not come back to normal. All they can think of is the property and the relatives they had lost in tsunami.”

Weavers

He had provided looms to their homes so that the young women too could weave. Said Rahman, “There was a demand for sarongs. We also received Daham School sari orders. Orders were more than we could manage.”

With his good will and image, Rahman was able to obtain credit from the EXPO centre and bought land for his industry. He gathered groups of weavers and put up small cottages, placing in each, five looms and one supervisor. Weavers could also weave at home and the work is collected.

“In one month, we made about 3,000 sarongs, 1,500 saris and other material,” Rahman said. “Now customers come from Colombo, Kandy and Ratnapura to buy our goods. With peace, we should have more customers.” At present, Maruthamunai has about 100 of small cottage factories and about 1,000 families involved in weaving. “They are earning more than Rs.700 per day,” Rahman said.

Rahman’s people’s company also holds regular exhibitions at the B.M.I.C.H. in Colombo, receiving stalls and transport free from the Department of Textiles and linking with new suppliers. “In 2003, we had the best exhibition in our lives. In three days, all our products were sold and we had collected Rs. 25 lakhs. Shop owners and individual buyers couldn’t believe that Sri Lankans could make products like that,” Rahman said. Since the duty on Indian cloth has increased, Maruthamunai cloth has a better chance, he says. Yarn for the looms is imported from India by suppliers in Colombo at a 20 per cent discount.

The hierarchy of the weaving industry is from the weaver to the supervisor and then to the master weaver. “Master weaver is the one with all the ideas and he can do everything in the industry,” explained Rahman who too, is a master weaver. “In our village, we have more than 20 master weavers.”

Good quality

Pointing out the dynamics of the weaving market, Rahman said that although many of the weavers want to earn from the industry, they do not know the market and are producing their own designs which cannot be sold. “Weavers can ask the master weavers who know about the market and demand.

But they don’t come to ask. We are losing these weavers because they are fed up.” He also points out that there are sarongs which are sold at Rs.450 but are of very poor quality. “The same sarong we can make of good quality and sell at Rs.150. Those weavers are losing Rs.300 per sarong.” Some do not know how to find the correct quality of yarn and good quality and low quality yarn are sold at the same price.

Since both yarn and dye for the yarn is imported, the only local raw material used is the salt mixed for certain colours. Rahman has his own dye factory, to dye the yarn he uses.

The Daily News also met another master weaver, Ahmed Nazeem, whose company in Maruthamunai is Ahamed Fabrics. “My father was weaving before tsunami but the tsunami destroyed that,” he said. “I entered the industry after the tsunami. My products are kuruthas, shirtings, sarongs and saris.” His profits are good, he said, which are more than Rs.50,000 monthly. “There are 25 people working in individual homes for us and we also have our own dyeing factory.”

Rizvia, a young woman who has been sewing in Rahman’s store for one year, said that she stitched about 125 sarongs a month and earned around Rs.18,000.

One cottage factory had a group of bare torsoed, sarong clad male weavers, robustly pedalling at their looms. “In weaving, you need to work your whole body, your eyes, your hands, your feet and your brain,” explained Nazeem. “For one minute, you can work without a break. To weave two meters for a sarong, it takes one-and-a-half-hours and six meters for a sari, it takes one day.” He also demonstrated how the dyed yarn is wrapped on shuttles which are hooked on to a loom to weave the warp threads that are held in one direction on the loom. Next, in the opposite direction, the weft threads are woven under and over the warp threads.

In one home, Uvais and his wife wove full time while their eldest daughter, 11-year old Sajana, a sixth grader, prepared food during her school vacation. Sajana could also speak some English and helped her parents by wrapping threads on to shuttles on the wheel and earned about Rs.150 pocket money. The Uvais couple said that they have been weaving for the last 16 years.

In weaving families, every member was linked to the industry in some way, explained Nazeem, with children assisting their parents. Badurdeen, a master weaver, has been weaving for five years and produced 1,500 sarongs a month from shot material.

The Daily News also visited a dyeing factory, the owner of which was Subair. “What is imported from India is grey yarn,” he said. One bundle of grey yarn equivalent to 4.54 kilos costs Rs.4,000. Grey yarn is bleached and drenched in the dye bath in which dye had been dissolved in water and warmed with fire underneath. The dyed bundles of yarn are wrung by hand and left to dry, before they are wrapped on shuttles to weave warp thread. The entire dyeing process is manual. “Maruthamunai has about seven dye factories,” Subair said. “While we dye for our weaving purposes, we also dye other people’s yarn for a payment. From the latter, we have a profit about Rs.150 per one kilo of yarn.”

Safeera has been dyeing grey yarn for two years, helping her husband. “In one day, about 25 bundles of yarn can be dyed, “ she said. Five workers were employed in their factory, with earnings ranging about Rs.800 – 1,500 per day. “During the school vacation before Ramazan festival, children come to work for pocket money to buy new clothes for the festival.”

Machine

While a dyer in a dyeing factory could only dye one bundle of yarn at a time, Rahman, using his technical acumen and helped by his brother, devised a manually operated bundle turning machine which can dye several bundles at the same time. “We can dye 12 kilos of yarn at a time and 90 kilos in a day,” he said. “Normally, two workers are needed to work together to dye.

But only one worker is needed for my machine. This way, the colour of the dye is evenly spread onto the yarn and not shaded.”

While Maruthamunai can be seen as a traditional Muslim village, with villagers been there for generations, Tamils also live there and the weavers said that they have never fought with each other but lived together peacefully side by side. Signs of tsunami were still not completed erased and amidst destroyed houses, only wells remained intact. Fishery and rice mills which indicate other main livelihood pursuits in Kalmunai could be seen in the distance.

(We thank F Tech Engineering Services Maruthamunai Project Manager M.S. Mohamed Fazeel who helped us obtain a comfortable stay at Sea Breeze Restaurant and Guest Inn at Sainthamaruthu, Kalmunai, and provided us with necessary contacts to do our stories. We also thank P.M.M.A. Cader, Journalist, who also gave us contacts and accompanied us in our rounds at Maruthamunai.)