Imtiyaz Pandow
Budgam: Wind back the clock to a decade or so, one will find the spinning wheel locally known as ‘yender’ in every Kashmir family irrespective of their economic status. Majority of Kashmiri women was engaged in the traditional craft of producing delicate threads from goat wool, later used for making Pashmina shawl, a world famous fabric. The women would toil hard from dawn to dusk in spinning the wheels to produce the delicate threads for making the Kani Shawl (Pashmina), known globally for its softness and comfort, and others. Spinning wheel was synonymous to the bread-winning device in the Valley’s poor families but no more.
“The returns are meager. One would get one rupee for a single knot, as was the case more than decades back. The returns are too little and this stands reason why women are giving it up and opting for other vocations,” says Misra Banu (60).
Misra recalls that almost every woman would learn the craft from elders enthusiastically and it would make the woman self reliant in many ways. “Some woman used to meet the family demands solely on the craft and the remunerations were such that they needed not to venture out of their hearth and home in search for the job as one sees in contemporary times,” she says.
The present generation of fairer gender is disinterested in opting for the spinning wheels as they can not meet their own demands let alone that of their families, she says.
Jahan Ara, a social worker believes the girls do not prefer the craft because present technological driven era offers better opportunities to earn more.
Most of the girls, she says, feel hesitant to adopt the old-tradition craft. “The craft demands innovation to attract the new generations towards it,” she says.
Fatima, a septuagenarian says that the craft of spinning wheels was considered sacred as it was opted by Kashmiris renowned women like Habba Khatoon and Lal Ded. “What could be more unfortunate than to see that the revered craft almost dead,” she laments.
If the government can preserve other traditional craft by implementing new schemes then why not spinning, she questions.
Abdul Rehman Mir, who is in the business from past 30 years, recalls the time when he had 200 to 250 spinners. “Invasion of machines and meager returns has wreck havoc with the craft and hardly anyone is now engaged in the craft.”
