Siripuram, Nalgonda district

• The Padmashali, the original residents of siripuram named the village SIRICONAGARAM(Siri-Gold,  Nagaram- village or city), In their words "sirilu Unna nagaram". They named it siriconagaram because they considered their threads as their gold.
• The nizams ruled the village of siripuram. The women of Hyderabad considered wearing ikat as a show of prestige and grandeur. The last Nizam to rule siripuram was Aurangzeb. Though the Nizams continue to rule Hyderabad they no longer had control over siripuram. The communist party leaders helped the people of siripuram to rule out Nizams.
• Ikat is identified to be in existence since the 5th century through the sculptures of ajantha caves. The exact origin of Ikat in Telangana is unrecorded but the people of siripuram claim to have been weaving Ikats for the past 150 to 200 years.
• The Padmashalis(weavers community) are the only people who used to live in the village but later on many people migrated and settled here.

• By train -  Three trains from Hyderabad.   Janmabumi express.     Narayanadri express.       Falaknuma express.   
• Nearest railway station to siripuram - Ramannapeta(5.2 km from siripuram)
• Nearest bus station- siripuram bustand
• To reach siripuram by bus- imlibun bus stand to choutuppal. Then choutuppal to siripuram.
• Nearest airport -  Rajiv Gandhi international airport, Begumpet airport.

• Most of the population of siripuram are Hindus out if which 20 families are Muslims. There are a lot of temples to visit and a lot of traditions that we don't know of. There is  one interesting tradition that amused us the most called kappaladatam.
• The ladies of the washer community hold a frog, tie it in a cloth to a stick along with some neem leaves and flowers. They carry this frog to every house and ask the lady of the house to shower the frog with water. They believe that Varunadeva(god of rain) will be pleased and shower them with rains and keep their washing profession alive. After it rains they marry the frog with another and complete their tradition.
• Goddesses yellamma and uppalamma are prayed  every day for good fortune.

• In a village with a population of over 4500 people, only two thousand of them are Weavers out of which only 20 families are Muslims and the rest are Padmashali. Men and women both do the weaving, walking, spooling, spinning, tieing and dyeing, There are nearly thirty Master Weavers and 10 shaukars and very few people work on their own and sell their products on their own. Not all the artisan's weave. Nearly 400 people out of 2000 Weavers weave.

• The government provided Weavers with GEO tag. Karvy institutions took a survey of all the Weavers who owns looms and provided the government with the survey results and the Weavers with the looms got geo tag. But not all the Weavers are provided with Geo tag in the village with the population of over 4500 people and in which 2000 of them are Weavers only 201 people with looms receive geo tags and other artisans who spin who warp who dye who tie who design are not considered under this geo tag program.
• The people with geo tag are supposed to get a subsidy from the government if they buy their Yarns from NHDC [National Handloom Development Corporation] they receive at 10% of discount if they buy the aliens directly from NHDC. Two people from a family can get the subsidy under one Geo tag.
• People with geo tag can also register and another government authorised program called thrift fund. The people who register under geo tag can deposit their money in the savings account and if they provide 8% of their total earnings to declare recurring deposit the government will provide them with double the savings they have placed in the AD [Assistant Director] account in they can withdraw the amount after 3 years period. And not all of the Weavers with your tags use the facility that the provided with only 170 out of 2 01 Weavers use the Geo tag, thrift fund facility.
• Previously they were provided with insurance and health card named ICICI Lombard scheme where in they were provided with the health cards if they Pay 7500 rupees a year period and there was scheme named MGBBY [Mahatma Gandhi bhunkar Bima Yojana] [2] where they were provided with Life Insurance worth 500000 rupees they have to pay 80 rupees per head to avail this Yojana all the schemes was removed by the central government 3 years ago.The unregistered Weavers are suffering as they do not get any subsidy or any help from the government or the society.

Most of the fabrics woven are for the home décor section. Dress material and chunni are also woven. Few of the motifs and designs found in Siripuram Ikat are: Geethalu, Pan patola, Rajasthan, Mamidipinde, Malle rekha, Malle mogga, Kota komma, Jaggu, Indhradhanasu, Chakram, Kaya, Pedha kaya, Chinna kaya, Diamond, etc. They use bright colors and sometimes they use darker colors according to the market demand. The weavers use white weft to tone down the colors of the warp. The artisans do not have any idea about the market and have no connections through which they can do business themselves. The designs are given by the market to the Society and Sahukars who pass on the design to the artisans. Very few artisans get the privilege design their own fabrics.

Process

Warping – Warping is done on the ‘addas’. This is known as drum warping. First the artisans used hanks of yarn but now they use cone. This is a very old technique. In 1 complete circle of the ‘adda’ 25 meters length of yarn is warped. If the yarn is warped on the ‘adda’ for 1 hour, there are 140 ‘koliki’, that is, 140 counts, that is, 280 threads.

The yarns are then dried by the technique of street spreading. The village is planned in a linear way because of this process only.

Weft preparation –The yarn is rotated on a ‘charkha’ so that it gets transferred to the shuttle and then it goes for weaving. Usually the females of the family help the artisans to do this.

Designing – The designs are made on the graph papers. One box on the graph denotes 6 yarns. Nowadays, for warp direction ikat, no graph paper is used because the artisans are so skilled that they can imagine the design and without any rough draft can start the tieing and dyeing.

Tieing - Once the designing is over, the artisan moves to tieing. The yarns are spread evenly and stretched in the room. Then, with the help of a ruler they mark the parts on the yarns which are to be tied. With the help of rubber strips from cycle tires, they tie the yarns tightly so that those portions are resisted and the dye does not penetrate that area. For very fine designs, they tie cotton yarns very tightly around the area which has to be resisted.

Dyeing – Once the bundle of yarns is tied, they are sent for dyeing. Most of the artisans, who tie the yarns also dye them. They use chemical dyes, like naphthol dye. They use caustic soda, TR and the color to dye the yarn. First, it is dipped in a soap solution and then it is dipped in the dye. The yarns are tied and dyed multiple times depending on the design.

Weaving – The dyed yarns are then sent to the weavers. The weavers dent the yarns in the loom and then start the weaving. They mostly use pit looms made of teak wood for weaving. They use plain weave, that is, 1 up and 1 down. They use temple to maintain the evenness of the width of the fabric.  They also use wax to smoothen the thread movement. They are mostly applied to the selvedges of the fabric. Wax is mostly used for red and yellow dyed yarn because they are coarser than others.