Unnamed Innovation

unnamed innovation;

an act beyond loom Mahesh Kumar Muljibhai Parmar

Mahesh Bhai working on his samples

Who had thought a Parmar boy who would often

take his bike off to highways, would one day be involved in such intricacy.

A boy, from the land of Jaggery, Vadnagar (a village 35 km from Mehasana) who was fascinated by the story of his grandfather told by his father who would accompany him on camel to deliver pachedi, to the land of Rabaris & Kacchis. It would take him to imagine what exactly would have happened:- an exchange of pachedi with same weighed grains. All these stories had a great impact shaping his interest. Everyday was a celebration. Getting 100/-INR as a pocket money per day can be nothing but a life of celebration.

As time flew away, he was carried by the parameters set by society. His father being working in bank wanted him to pursue higher education.

However, there was a sense of imagination developed through stories, which ignited his interest in history.

He wanted to write as much as he can

“Jitna main bolta nahi usse chauguna main likh sakta hoon.”

Though his keen interest was in weaving but he also wanted to enjoy the college life. This young lad started with his college life. Full of energy & enthusiasm, he headed with economics as his opening strike. However, he was clean bowled in the starting years. He had good time playing cricket with his college friends. He was attracted to the NCC camp in his college, which led his interest towards Indian army. Ultimately he followed the rhythm of his heart and started warping his dreams.

He joined Institute of Handloom for his Diploma in Textile (1996-98) and he was one of the topper of the batch. Time was fleeting and something was being awaited for him.

A cheerful chilled out person was soon to take responsibility on his shoulders after unexpected death of his father. He started earning at Ahmedabad, and then worked there for three years. Soon he started with his first job, which was gifted by his father. He started working at Gujarat State Handloom Weaver’s Corporation Federation. He contributed there for three years as a weaver and explored lot of possibilities in weaving. This was the first time of interaction when he started working on his own dream. He put a lot of effort to learn new techniques and exploration with different yarns. These three years of journey has led him to think and conceptualize weaving and boosted his confidence to train upcoming weavers. During this time he also interacted with different people who has also given opportunities to him to think beyond weave.

Time was flying; it was an era of 2004, which was at a full, fledge of growing industries in India and lot of scheme enveloped with opportunities from the Govt. of India, which was awaited for being unsealed. Soon there came a recommendation from Weavers Service Center, Ahmedabad. This was the time, When Mr. Parmar was appointed as a Master Weaver to upgrade the skills of handloom weavers & workers in the field of design development & weaving under on-going inhouse short term training programmes under IHTP (INTERGRADED HANDLOOM TRAINING PROJECT) Scheme. This opportunity provided all possible technical assistance in terms of design input, technical advice in weaving to weavers and all concerned to Handloom Sector to technically support them on a continuous basis for sustained development of the Handloom Sector in different parts of India and to visit the Handloom pockets for rendering technical assistance to weavers and help them conduct Design Exhibition-cum-Weaving Workshop with a view to create awareness in the weaver clusters about the services available in WSCs and to impart training in design development.

Warp Beam

Spool Holder

Charkha

Yarn Winding Machine

Shuttle

Dobby Shuttle

Dobby Loom

Bobbin

Weaving Stool

Table Top Loom

Tools used by him for weaving at NID, Paldi

Mahesh Bhai working on his samples

It proved to be a turning point that changed the course of his life. He was selected for the post. Then the real journey of his life started, which had different routes, but now leading towards the ultimate. He started training weavers from different regions of Gujarat. As knowledge multiplies with sharing, he widened his scope through travelling & training so many batches. He travelled across Junagarh, Surendranagar and Navapara that further enhanced his skills and knowledge.

This was the time, when he also started collecting knowledge from the weavers coming from different parts of the state to connect the design sense and its ability, i.e. how it plays an important role in the industry.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all”- Helen Keller

During this time, Design Institute across India also took initiative to teach the traditional way of weaving at WSC to their students. These young bloods came up with innovative ideas and their eagerness of learning new and complicated structures. The students from NID & NIFT visited WSC and started interacting with him and in return He started to innovate into weaving and it was a happy realization and he was very much motivated by that. This very episode of his life made him feel on cloud nine.

Breaking the silence of the dawn, a man all set to start his new day, following the music in his heart. He heads to the chai gate crafting his visualization on the condensed mist of hot chai. Walking through the green gates and finally warping his imagination.

After a workaholic kind of day in college, he is once again ready to contribute towards his family responsibility.

Eyes were filled with dreams yet weary, finally opened at an alien place.

Yes… he was fifteen miles away from his destination.

Left with just four rupees in his pocket, he walked and walked but nobody stopped for him. After walking three miles he finally met a man who was driving a truck. He carried him to his destination.

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness” -Desmond Tutu

He is a kind of person who willingly stays back to help the students be it till late night. He is true to his duty and has a very unique personality. He accepts challenges and once he starts with an experiment, he never steps back rather continues it without any fear of failure.

“kuch kar guzarne ka junoon sa cha gaya tha”

Leno was the first structure, he started with. He explored all the basic and advanced weaving. He worked with extra warp and extra weft techniques.

The interaction with young India made him to start exploring new techniques with structures and materials and the place was the restrictions now and it was a right time for him to take another flight for a new beginning.

One day the great opportunity was in the Newspaper and never looking back journey started at the textile studio NID Paldi.

Be it special warp and special weft, terry, cut pile structures, chicks, he would be patient enough to interact with his warp with a good design sense. He would completely surrender himself and bring out quality in his work be it tedious and time taking. For him quality is more important than quantity. His works speaks of his style.

Opportunity comes to those who have something to innovate. A flexible man, always ready to explore new things, be it material, different counts of yarns, keeping in mind the color interaction.

Being skilled in his work, he got various projects at NID. • He has worked on Durries and weft faced structures for Delhi Exhibition, a project with Ms. Aditi Ranjan (NID Faculty, Textile Design).

• He contributed in North East Project with Ms. Swasti Singh Ghai. (NID Faculty, Textile Design).

• He also worked on Yoga mats a project initiated by Department of Ayush ,Ministry of Health & Family Welfare ,Government of India • He explored on Jute as a part of Student Diploma project that was sponsored by NCJD (National Centre for Jute Diversification), Calcutta under Make in India Campaign, Indian Govt.

• He explored with different counts of Jute yarns, color interaction of Jute yarns, with combination of Jute & cotton - a different behaved material. Jute Woven concepts were created for home furnishing items like curtains, table runners and coasters.

Cut Pile Structure Sample Process Involved in making (On right)

An Exploration on Cut Pile Structure Sample

NID was the place where he innovated new techniques like bead weaving and on loom embroidery. It was so well crafted that it would be mistaken for hand embroidery.

During his exploration, he found out many things that worked and also that does not worked.

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. -Thomas A. Edison

He had never thought that a simple exercise on color exploration would lead to a new discovery- An unnamed innovation.

Once he was given yarns of different colors and was asked to compose them in such a way so that color interaction is there. Then he started winding it on a square cardboard piece.

A motif dervied through thread winding on a cardboard piece

He found it so fascinating that he started doing it in his leisure times. He had no clues of what intricacy and magical power his work has. It will make one spellbound.

It is a visualization of a woven structure without actually weaving it on a loom.

This man is magic. He has developed many Jewelry items through this unique technique.

A Composition explored through thread winding on a cardboard piece

A Composition explored through thread winding on a cardboard piece

Different products explored by him in his recent years.

This is just about weaving. There is also a must known truth about him. He is a man of vision who is always ready to acquire knowledge and share it. Being at NID itself, recently he has completed his Bachelors in history from Baba Saheb Ambedkar Open University and is currently pursuing his masters in Political Science. Thus he fulfilled his dream of completing his academics through distance learning.

This speaks about his optimistic quality and that is the spark of his life.

As he has been involved in creative writing, he has written certain articles on social issues. He believes in penning down his work.

His future vision is to train all the weavers of his village and organize them and bring them to a platform where they can be acknowledged and appreciated for their work by the outer world. By doing this he wants to strengthen weaving so that it is not lost in this technology driven world where hand work is losing its importance. He wishes to document about them and contribute his part.

Process Involved

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Process of yarn winding techniques on cardboard

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Process of yarn Beads weaving techniques on frames

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Final products of beads weaving Step:01

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Process of onloom embroidery

An article by students of Masters of Design (Textile Design )

Akanksha Priya Ekta Singh Padma Raj Keshri Sandip jaiswal under the guidance of Mr. Vijai Singh Katiyar