Shaheen held a nearly finished Banarasi saree up to the afternoon light.
The fabric lay across her lap as she moved a small blade carefully along its underside, cutting away the fine threads left behind after weaving.
“This work may seem small from the outside, but the saree won’t look right if it’s not done properly. Every thread has to be perfect,” she said, her hands moving across the fabric with practised precision.
Shaheen, who is in her late forties, was doing katorna, the process of cutting extraneous threads from the reverse of a woven saree.
She had learnt the work from her mother-in-law soon after marrying into the family. Years later, it remained part of her everyday routine, fitted around cooking, caregiving and the other work that kept the household running.
And as I would discover while moving through the weaving homes of Madanpura in Varanasi, Shaheen’s hands were part of a much larger story behind the Banarasi saree.
Inside Madanpura’s saree-making homes
Madanpura is one of Varanasi’s old weaving neighbourhoods, long associated with the making of Banarasi silk sarees and brocades.
Its narrow lanes pass between closely built homes. Bikes lean against doorframes, children move between houses, and tea stalls and thread vendors sit alongside the everyday life of the neighbourhood.
It was Ramadan when I visited.
Sameer, an autorickshaw driver who has lived in these lanes all his life, guided me through the neighbourhood and into its weaving homes.
Over the course of my visit, I entered around seven or eight houses and spoke to approximately 10 to 15 women. Many preferred brief conversations and did not want to be photographed, a request I respected.
Inside the homes I visited, the loom told only one part of the story.
Women sorted silk threads by colour. They wound thread onto bobbins, checked finished fabric for flaws, trimmed loose threads, folded completed sarees and prepared them for delivery.
Some of this work happened beside cooking, childcare and other household responsibilities. There was rarely a separate working day with a defined beginning or end.
The saree-making simply moved through the home.
Who does the work around the loom?
The loom is usually the most visible part of Banarasi saree-making.
In the households I visited, it was generally operated by a male karigar, or craftsperson, whose skill shaped the weave and motifs of the saree.
But the work around that loom involved several other hands.
Threads had to be sorted and wound before weaving. Once the saree came off the loom, the finished fabric had to be inspected carefully. Loose or unwanted threads were removed, flaws checked, and the saree folded and prepared for collection.
Women in the homes I visited were involved across several of these stages.
Their contribution could stretch across the day depending on the work available, the saree being made, domestic responsibilities and the number of family members sharing the tasks.
Shaheen’s son, who is in his twenties, operated the loom in an adjoining room.
“A saree is not one person’s work. I do my part at the loom, but before and after that, it’s the family. Mostly the women here,” he said.
When an order had to be completed, he explained, different members of the household took responsibility for different stages. He worked at the loom while his mother and wife handled thread preparation, inspection and finishing.
That division of labour also shaped how the family was paid.
How weaving families are paid for a Banarasi saree
Shaheen’s son explained that orders often reached weaving households through a gaddidar, a contractor or intermediary within the Banarasi saree production chain.
The gaddidar arranges or provides the material and order, agrees on the making rate and deadline, and collects the finished saree. The weaving household receives its payment once the work is completed and delivered.
In the homes I visited, women’s work was treated as part of the household’s contribution to the finished saree rather than as a separately calculated job.
Their hours spent sorting, winding, inspecting or finishing did not carry an individual piece rate of their own.
“Margins have shrunk over the years,” Shaheen’s son said. “Machine-made imitations and cheaper alternatives have made it harder to negotiate on price.”
The structure made something else apparent inside these homes.
A finished saree could represent the labour of several family members, while the payment arrived for the household’s completed piece.
For women like Shaheen and her daughter-in-law Nazreen, their particular contribution could disappear inside that single transaction.
Working around the Ramadan fast
During Ramadan, Shaheen adjusted the work around her fast.
She preferred heavier tasks, including sorting threads and winding bobbins, during the cooler morning hours. Lighter finishing work could continue through the afternoon.
Katorna, inspection and finishing could take several hours depending on how intricate the saree was and how much work remained once it came off the loom.
Before iftar, the meal that breaks the day’s fast, attention shifted towards the kitchen.
After sunset, the neighbourhood became active again. Work resumed in some homes as families ate and the lanes filled with movement.
“During the fast, we work slowly. But the work doesn’t stop. The hands know what to do, even when the body is still,” Shaheen said.
That afternoon, she continued working on a saree that would eventually leave Madanpura for a buyer she would probably never meet.
‘They don’t know whose hands finished it’
In the next room, Shaheen’s daughter-in-law, Nazreen, was sorting silk threads by colour.
She separated them into small piles, looking closely at differences in shade that could affect the finished weave.
Nazreen had studied up to Class 10. She understood the craft she had grown up around and was also aware of how Banarasi sarees were presented and priced once they reached shops and bridal markets.
She remembered looking up saree prices after watching a television programme about bridal shopping.
“People spend so much on a Banarasi saree. They know all about the design, the silk, the zari. But they don’t know whose hands finished it,” she said.
Nazreen was unsure whether she wanted to spend her entire life doing the same work.
Her uncertainty centred on a simple question: what would the work feel like if her particular skill had a name and a value of its own?
“If someone said, ‘This part of the work is yours, and this is what it’s worth,’ I’d think about it differently,” she said. “Right now, it just gets mixed in with everything else.”
In one sentence, she described much of what I had seen inside the weaving homes.
The women were working. Their skills were visible in the process. Yet their individual contribution rarely travelled with the saree once it left the house.
A GI tag can identify the saree. Can it identify its makers?
Near Madanpura’s main market, I also met Rashid, a local trader who has bought and sold Banarasi sarees for several decades.
Banaras Brocades and Sarees received Geographical Indication registration in 2009, giving the craft formal recognition linked to its geographical origin.
That recognition tells a buyer something important about the product and the tradition it comes from.
It does not tell them who sorted a particular bundle of thread, inspected the fabric, removed its loose threads or prepared that saree before it left a weaving home.
For women such as Shaheen and Nazreen, that is where the gap in recognition sits.
The saree carries the name Banarasi.
The individual hands involved in making it ready for the market usually remain known only within the household.
When a finished saree leaves Madanpura
I left Madanpura as the azaan, or call to prayer, rose over the rooftops in the early evening.
Shaheen had placed the saree she had worked on through the afternoon on a low shelf. Deep maroon and gold, it caught the last light of the day as it waited to be collected.
She had moved to the kitchen.
The loom in the adjoining room had stopped. Outside, the lane filled with footsteps, children’s voices and the sound of vessels being lifted from stoves.
I thought about where that saree might go next.
Perhaps to a shop. Perhaps to a bride. Perhaps to an occasion that would stay in someone’s photographs for decades.
Before any of that, it had passed through this house.
Through the loom in the adjoining room.
Through Nazreen’s piles of carefully sorted thread.
And through Shaheen’s hands, lifting the fabric towards the light and knowing exactly which tiny thread still needed to be cut before the saree was ready to leave.
All images courtesy Akhil Rajarathinam
