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pure silk is essential to making an
authentic banara sisari
they can only be made here in the town
of varanasi where the craft was born
weavers use methods that go back 600
years and even add gold and silver
threads to their designs
at one point they were so expensive only
royals and the wealthiest families could
afford them
but cheap imitations made with synthetic
silk have flooded the market in recent
decades
forcing many weaving families out of
business
so how is this centuries-old tradition
still standing
to weave a banara sisari a weaver first
sources fine silk
it goes through a cleaning and dyeing
process before it's made into thread
dyers drape the white silk over steel
rods and submerge it in tanks of boiling
soap water and then rub the yarn with
their hands until it's soft and bright
they give it one more wash and hang it
to dry
colors are mixed with warm water caustic
soda and acid
they dip the roll in the mixture for two
to three hours to make sure the threads
are coated evenly
dyes change colors according to the
season festival and city
muhammad absal ansari has been working
with this silk since he was 15 years old
he has preserved the traditional ways of
weaving banarasi sarees like using the
khadi a 200 year old wooden loom
he follows designs that are punched on
cardboard cards he buys from arun kumar
it's sort of like making a stencil
arun uses this tool and a hammer to
pierce holes in them
nowadays he's so fast he can make
thousands of cards in one week
the drawings blend muggle persian and
chinese motifs
this work is called likhai
artists use traditional designs or
invent their own
mohammed ties all the cards together
then hangs them on the moon
but the difficult part is working with
the threads
most banarasi saris are six yards long
and it takes five thousand threads to
weave a single one
and muhammad works for two days to
assemble them on the loom
he sprays water to preserve their
elasticity and to make them softer
now he can start weaving
foreign
these golden silk threads are called
zari
and that's what gives the banars hisaris
their signature look
muhammad uses the threads in smaller
spindles to create the iconic banarashi
brocades
he throws the shuttle from one end of
the loom to the other to create the
design
it's a tedious process that requires
many years of experience to master
and muhammad has been doing it for 40
years
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silk flourished in varanasi between the
16th and 18th centuries when the mughal
dynasty ruled over india
they were known for their lavish taste
in architecture food and clothing
so weavers added real gold and silver
threads into their silk garments
and only india's richest and most
influential families could afford them
in the 19th century more than 300
thousand weavers worked across the city
but industrialization brought in power
looms that produced faster and cheaper
fabrics
today less than 15 percent remain in
this traditional craft compared to its
beak
these traditional fabrics are so festive
that they're reserved for special
occasions
in some communities only brides wear
them
the lightest sari will take about a week
to weave
heavier ones can take a month and more
intricate designs can take six months to
complete
while muhammad is able to only make four
to five sarees a month a machine can
finish a design in one day
detailed and complicated designs can be
sold for thousands of dollars
but fake banara sisaris have flooded the
market since the mid 1980s
they can sell for as low as 2500 indian
rupees or 31
that's a quarter of what muhammad
charges for some of his cheaper sarees
to compete some business owners here in
varanasi are opting to use the machines
too
and they've even started using synthetic
yarns instead of real
silk a major hurdle is that it can be
hard to tell the difference between the
two yes
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it is
but muhammad cannot afford the costs
that come with the modernization of his
craft
in 2009 the indian government issued a
geographical indication for banarasi
brocade's ansaris
that means only hand-loomed sarees made
in varanasi and a few other districts
can be branded authentic
but this did not stop the production of
imitations and has not helped the
traditional
the weavers of the hand-loomed fabric
remains uncertain
but muhammad believes that people who
know the value of authentic banarasi
saris will continue to buy them
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