Mashru is the only craft in Kutch whose name is an argument. The word means, roughly, “this is allowed”.
The problem it solves
For some Muslim communities, silk should not touch the skin. Silk is also the most beautiful cloth available, and people wanted to wear it.
The weavers of Mandvi solved it structurally. Put the silk in the warp and the cotton in the weft, weave it so the silk floats on the face and the cotton sits underneath, and you get a fabric that is lustrous silk on one side and plain cotton on the other. The silk shows. The cotton is what touches you.
That is Mashru. It is not a decorative style, it is a piece of engineering with a name that states its own verdict.
Who wove it, who wore it
The Maheshwari weavers made it, at Mandvi — the port town, which mattered, because a great deal of it left by sea. The Ahir Patels, farmers, supplied the handspun cotton. And Rabari and Ahir women took the finished cloth and worked embroidery and mirror over it, which is how Mashru ends up underneath some of the most photographed textiles in Gujarat.
It was a royal craft, woven in large quantities right up to the 1900s for local elites and for export. Both Muslim and Hindu communities wore it.
The loom
Mashru is woven on a pedal loom with seven to twelve pedals — many more than a plain weave needs, because the structure that separates silk face from cotton back has to be lifted in sequence. There are around eighty threads per inch, and the loom is limited to about 23 inches of width. Wider is not possible on the technology.
Which tells you something: every wide Mashru garment is pieces joined.
Where it stands now
There are 15 to 20 Mashru weavers left. Power looms make something that looks like it for less. Clothing habits changed. And the real thing — the original cotton-and-silk Mashru with the lush hand — is not being produced any more.
Read that again, because it is the sharpest sentence in Kutch textiles. Mashru has not merely declined. The actual fabric has stopped.
The number of weavers working with Khamir at Kukma is rising, which is the one hopeful line available.
Ours
The Mashru Stripes coaster and the 600ml steel bottle take the striped satin banding — the part of Mashru you can actually see across a room.
It is our drawing, printed by machine. There is no silk in it and no cotton either. If the stripes send one person to Mandvi to ask what happened to the real cloth, the coaster has done more than hold a cup.
If you want real Mashru
Ask at Khamir, or at Mandvi. Be prepared for the answer that what is available is silk-and-rayon rather than the old silk-and-cotton. Buy it anyway — the 15 to 20 people still at those looms are the reason the technique exists to be revived at all.
Eleven more crafts in the Kutch range, and boxed gift sets if you are buying for someone else.
Written in Bhuj, Gujarat.