Journalism of Courage
As a drape or in a tailored form,the humble gamcha,a piece of Indian textile gets a new lease of life
When Anurag Kashyap screened his ambitious saga Gangs of Wasseypur as part of the Directors Fortnight segment of the Cannes film festival,he chose to do it in a very desi style. Given the fact that the film which releases in India today revolves around the coal mafia in Bihar,the filmmaker decided to add to the event a rustic touch. Clad in their finest evening wear,the members of the films cast and crew wore a traditional gamcha around their neck. Soon,Kashyap made sure that guests too had one each to sport. With this,the humble gamcha which is a thin,coarse,traditional cotton towel used widely in Hindi heartland and eastern states of India shot into the spotlight at the swish party in Cannes.
In the field of fashion too,gamcha is currently being celebrated and reinvented by many designers. For instance,Bangladeshi designer Bibi Russell has been advocating for years now that it should be treated like any other fabric and be used to make napkins,tablecloths,cushion covers and even bed sheets. Closer home,Delhi-based Aneeth Arora,whose label Pero is known for its use of the gamcha,points out that she loves it because its effortlessly stylish and is part of our heritage and culture. Different parts of India,have its own take on gamcha. While gamchas in the South have checks and ikat prints,the Assam versions are white towel cloths that have red flowers woven in as motifs. The ones in Rajasthan tend to have coloured edges such as black,red or green, says Arora. She has used gamcha to make dresses,scarves and aprons for around six different collections over the past three years.
Proud of his long-standing affair with gamcha is veteran designer James Ferriera. I made my first gamcha collection 14 years ago. From dresses and blouses to shorts where I have added a lining made of voil,I have worked extensively with gamcha. Whenever I go to Kolkata,I buy gamchas from the local markets. I love to lounge about in my gamcha shorts or wear a gamcha around my neck, he says.
Apart from its simplicity,its versatility has added to gamcha ‘s charm. Designer Paromita Banerjee explored this in her spring summer collection at the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) in March. For this ,she had used gamcha as a head wrap for models,apart from making dresses,blouses and stoles with it. An important part of street style in India,gamcha can be worn in different ways either around the neck,on one side of the shoulder or as a scarf. Men in villages also wear it as dhoti, she explains.
Then there are those whose love for gamcha stems from its practical uses — a case in point being designer duo Mayank Anand and Shraddha Nigam. Anand,a former TV actor,chanced upon a gamcha cloth some years ago during a shoot. He was impressed by the fact that it’s not as thick as Western-style towels and thus,better suited to the country’s tropical climate. It is a very comfortable fabric that absorbs sweat quickly and I started making gamcha trousers for myself. When Shraddha and I got into designing,we moved on to making other silhouettes such as tunics and skirts, he says.
Notwithstanding its popularity among designers,gamcha still has long way to go before it becomes a fashion staple. Ferreira points out how there’s a greater demand for gamch a s abroad than in India. There’s a chunk of the boutique-browsing clientele here that doesn’t find the gamcha very appealing because it has been known as a poor man’s garment. There is need for greater awareness about the different ways in which gamcha can be worn, he says.
