A ray of sunshine filtering through the branches of trees.

Green, gold, leaves and branches, the mulch and growing mushrooms.

The faller leaves, the sprouting weed, the curling branches.

Beetles, frogs, dragon flies and fireflies.

The sounds of crickets, bats and owls.

The web of spiders, the slithering earthworms, the climbing leech.

The creepers, climbers, parasitic and host plants,

The furrows, burrows, sparrows and sorrows!

The shadows, streaks, glares and god’s fingers through the trees.

All but alive through the komorebi!

The base and pleats included striped panels of Kalamkari with a bold border of hues of jungle green.

The drape extend as a booti weave of a blend fabric created with muga and eri yarn. The pallu is made using Muga yarn woven on traditional Tai khampti looms.

All plain cotton base fabrics in the sari are also woven by Tai Khampti artisans.

About Tai Khampti weaving:

My association with Tai Khampti tribe began in 2012 when I expressed my wish to work with weaves of their community. She said she would involve her family- her own mother, mother-in-law and sisters-in-law to experiment making some weaves together. She mentioned that since they had not woven saris before, this would involve some trial and errors. Her family started to weave the more intricate patterns after about two years of trials. What started out among the family members in the year 2012, soon extended itself to about 30 homes of Namsai district.

In 2013, we brought about 500 kgs of cotton yarn to Arunachal Pradesh and took it as a drive to sensitise weavers towards using cotton over synthetic yarns for their indigenous weaves. Amla has championed the work we carried out with Tai Khampti weavers for more years than I could ever imagine. She began engaging untrained weavers, single mothers, and older women to engage in weaving plain, checks and striped fabrics. Rather than buying plain handloom fabrics from mainland, we began creating livelihood opportunities by weaving less intricate weaves as a medium of training new weavers and convenient income for trained ones.