The Looms of Arivoor

The looms of arivoor is inspired by SA bit a radhakrishna’s work with handlooms and weavers as a textile revivalist, research scholar and designer, across India for over forty years. It portrays the struggle faced by traditional weavers who practice oral tradition in handloom weaving and the only skill known to them for generations. The looms of arivoor portrays the disparate lives of the protagonists, Tilak an IAS Officer and kulasekhara master weaver with high ideals, and the conflict which arises for each in following their ideals. Shifting values, honesty, aggressiveness all play a part in the story. Sa bit a radhakrishna’s passion for textiles drove her to writing a play song of the loom on which the story is based. The play was produced by the Madras players a leading English theatrical group in Chennai which ran to full houses for three days. The novel captures incidents fraught with tension faced by today’s craftsperson’s and artisans, most of them illiterate and incapable of managing their finances. A huge problem that India faces, as she watches the skilled artisans abandon their vocation to seek better paid jobs in the industry. And as a craft activist, SA bit a uses her pen to create awareness of the situation, so that the public would in their own way create a sustainable livelihood for the artisan by providing a market which they badly need.