Telia Rumal

What is Telia Rumal?

Telia Rumal names a cloth and the process behind it: yarn given a long bath in oil before it is dyed and woven. Rumal is the word for a square cloth, and telia remembers the oil. The technique sits in the ikat family, where yarn is resist-dyed before it reaches the loom, and the colours come from natural plant dyes. The craft was born in Chirala, a town in Andhra Pradesh's Bapatla district. When weavers there nearly let the work die, hands that still knew it carried it to Puttapaka, a village in Telangana. Today the Telangana version carries a Geographical Indication tag, and the cloth is woven and known well beyond the two villages that kept it going.

Where does Telia Rumal come from?

The story starts in Chirala, in what is now Andhra Pradesh's Bapatla district, where weavers developed this oil-and-dye work. Under the Nizams of Hyderabad the cloth found royal patrons, who paid for elaborate, specially made pieces. That support did not last forever. By recent decades the Chirala weavers had all but abandoned the craft, and it stood close to being lost. Practitioners who still held the skill moved it to Puttapaka, a village in Telangana's Yadadri district, and set the tradition up there. Gajam Govardhana then championed the revival, popularising the work while it was fading and lifting this sustainable, naturally made craft onto an international stage. Recently the Puttapaka version earned a Geographical Indication tag of its own.

How is Telia Rumal made?

Two steps set this cloth apart. The first is the oil treatment: yarn is soaked in oil until it is thoroughly treated, a slow preparation that gives the craft its name. The second is the dyeing. Telia Rumal belongs to the ikat tradition, which means the pattern is built into the yarn itself: the threads are resist-dyed before weaving, so the design appears, with softly blurred edges, as the cloth is woven on the loom. The colours come from natural dyes of vegetable origin, part of why the whole process is called sustainable. Because the craft nearly vanished, few weavers command the full sequence, and the skill passes through those trained in the old way.

Colours, motifs and borders

This is a cloth whose beauty comes from process rather than painted ornament. The ikat method gives the patterns their slightly softened edges, since the yarn carries its colour before weaving begins. The palette is limited to what natural vegetable dyes can give. Under Nizam patronage, weavers produced elaborate pieces, worked out in fine detail for their royal clients. Workshops build their own patterns within this discipline of oiled yarn and resist dyeing.

Styles of Telia Rumal

Two centres now define the tradition. Chirala, the Andhra town where it began, has seen its weaving dwindle to almost nothing. Puttapaka, a village in Telangana's Yadadri district, is where practitioners re-established the craft, and it is this version that has been recognised with a Geographical Indication tag. The two places share one method, oil-treated yarn worked in ikat with natural dyes, but their identities as centres of making are distinct.

What Telia Rumal means

The cloth carries the memory of Hyderabad's Nizams, who kept weavers busy with elaborate commissions. It also carries a story of rescue: a craft on the point of being lost was picked up by people who knew it well, and by Gajam Govardhana, whose advocacy carried the work to an international audience as an example of sustainable, natural making. The recent Geographical Indication tag for Puttapaka Telia Rumal gives the weavers there a protected name and a mark of authenticity for the cloth they produce.

Questions people ask about Telia Rumal

Good reading and sources

• Telia Rumal: Is the tide turning?Mint, Article

• Telia Rumal on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data