top of page
Urban Fellowship —— 01/01
Will the
Saree Sing?
"Will the Saree Sing?" is a project that critically examines Chowlugully (a street in the city of Bangalore) and its peculiar evolution from the lenses of planning, governance, identity and economy.
Year
2018
Agency
Indian Institute
for Human Settlements
Project Type
Qualitative Research,
Mapping, Policy
My
Contribution
It's a team project and everybody contributed equally in unpacking the precarious case of Chowlugully. I took the responsibility to enquire about the planning policies that legally govern the street, as well as chronologically mapping the evolution of use of each building unit of the street.
Overview
The Context
The history of Silk saree making in Bangalore goes back to the time of Tipu Sultan, who sent people to Bengal to learn sericulture and established it in Mysore. As sericulture spread out of Mysore, it found it’s way to Bangalore, more specifically Chowlugully (Cubbonpete). The oldest silk saree making unit we found on the street belonged to the Kumar family (Devanga Community) and dates back more than 100 years. We were able to stitch together extensive oral histories of loom operators in the gully, as well as the jewellery making Bengalis who are slowly finding more space in the Pete. The research project focuses on Governance, Identity, Economy and Generational Occupation as operating themes. We leave you with questions that could inform better Policy and subsequent improve in master plans.
Street History
The evolution of Chowlugully was narrated to us by Ajji (grandmother) from the Kumar family. She reminisce how they arrived at Chowlugully more than 100 years ago. She informed us how there was a graveyard on site that slowly got buried under rapid development. The Kumar family (belong to the Devanga Community) were handloom operators, but they had to shift to powerlooms because of the high demand of silk sarees in the country. Ever since, powerlooms have been their only source of income, but now they don’t operate one and have rented it out to other operators. The general sense of the gully has a predominant Bengali influence as the spaces are being occupied by jewellers as it’s a more lucrative profession for sustenance.
Street Mapping
We mapped all the plots in Chowlugully, as well as the evolution of activities associated with each plot overtime.
As we can observe, the transition of handlooms to powerlooms started post 1965, and within 25 years the entire street had powerlooms operating. With the coming of the Bengalis in the adjacent Nagarathpete - they started losing space to stiff competition. Starting late 1990s, various different occupational activities replaced powerlooms viz. hair-cutting salons, juice shops, food shops, export material shops and some other. As we can see, at present, the number of powerloom operators in Chowlugully is significantly low and the space feels more like a Bengali settlements with other miscellaneous activities in operation.
Mapping & Digital Visualization:
Amarinder Arora
Governance
& Legal Purposes
when the saree's singing becomes a problem
The current master plan of Bangalore shows Chowlugully (and parallel streets) in Cubbonpete (next to Nagarathpete) lie in the Petta district and have Residential, Commercial and Industrial land-use.
The proposed master plan of 2015 changes the land-use of the entire place to Commercial (Central) category. The same is reflected in the 2031 master plan, as well. The entire Petta district has been named as
“Central Business District”. The change in land-use to Commercial (Central) says that the main land-use category is C4, and other land-uses permissible are R, I-3, T3 and U4.
The Problem - Excerpts
Identity -
Bengali Street?
After visiting the street multiple times, we started to feel that the street had in fact lost its intrinsic character of a street with looms. The sound from the looms filled the air around us, but it was invariably overshadowed by the smell of Bengali food on the street. We clicked pictures of posters that had things written in the Bengali script, and some even mentioned the address of their shops as Bangali Para which roughly translates to Bengali Street. All Bengali shops in Chowlugully practice gold-wire pulling, and a quick google search gave us a great insight into why the street was important for their business.
Generational
Occupation
We prepared a 2x2 matrix on generational transfer of skill to map the aspirations of the loom-workers and their kids. We conducting in-depth discussions with them to understand generational transfer of knowledge. It is clear from the Matrix that 4 of the 6 loom-workers have discontinued weaving even if skills were transferred (or not). For instance, Hemant Kumar discontinued weaving, sold two of his powerlooms and has rented the space to other operators. His son aspires to be a pilot, therefore no transfer of skill happened. Both Hemant and his family aspire for their kids to get quality education and work on their dreams.
Saree Making
Process Overview
Economy -
Business of Saree Making
Chowlugully is not just a street that has operational powerlooms - it also caters to the other processes in the production and business chain.
There are export-silk waste collectors, saree retailers, wholesale personnel, print-making experts and so on. To understand the entire business cycle, we mapped the production cycle of a saree from start to end. We understood the business-model of three of these stakeholders and mapped them to one of the “Value Chain Governance” models.
The dynamics of all of these players and their pivotal role in the production of a saree made us understand and question the decrease in business and rapid disappearance of powerlooms in Chowlugully.
Hierarchical model : Keshav Murthy
Modular model : Puneet
Captive model : Hemant Kumar
Hierarchical model represents an integrated network where all the stakeholders are a part of the same lead firm.
Modular model is the most market-like model. Here, suppliers make products/ provide services to a customer’s satisfaction.
In the Captive model, small suppliers are dependent on a few buyers that often wield a great deal of power and control.
Here's a question :
Hint: All of the above four options are recorded instances. But who does what?
IS IT REALLY A CHOICE? OR FORCED CIRCUMSTANCE?
The Team
Amarinder, Mukta, Priyam, Siddharth
bottom of page