Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Solapur Bags


Pishvi in marathi, kothada in guajarati, chila in kannada and sanchi in teulgu, thaili in hindi or a chick tote bag… call it whatever but it remains a simple and useful basic bag of its kinds. Everyone uses such a bag at least once in life and many have their lives revolving around this.

I pass through many street shops selling such basic bags everywhere, but there is something different about such shops in Solapur. They also sell bags unique to Solapur and those are the bags stitched from
chaddars. These bags are referred to as ‘Chadarichya pishvya’ in Marathi.

Bag seller @ Lakshmi market, Solapur

Variety of Bags at the above shop
These bags are made from the jacquard woven chaddar fabrics which either are excess pieces from the loom or are initial weave trials or either have some weave defects. These are purchased from the weaving units and are locally stitched on a small scale for local market sales. You might find this a very mundane thing but NO! It is an ingenious sustainable product. Made from excess/waste, this bag also adds to employment to some extent and is also very useful.
I got the above bag from my grandfather and he tells me that it is about 25 years old. And that means it is older than me! He had bought this bag for Rs. 3/-. Now you just have to add a zero to this which makes it Rs. 30/-. Striking motifs unambiguously woven into colorful stripes are simply superb. These bags are my current subject of interest for exploration. Wait for it... it is going to be legendary!!

12 comments:

Aayushi Jindal said... [Reply]

wao nic......dis post makes it obvious ur luv for bags.....n also ur style of wrk n color pallete are grtly influenced by solapur fabrics.....

no doubts u r 4m Solapur :)

Aarti Badamikar said... [Reply]

Thanks Aayushi! Thats a sooper comment...I like it!
I think that is a subconscious influence then!! :)

Dushyant said... [Reply]

Its really nice good one !

Anuradha Shankar said... [Reply]

good one.... when we had been to solapur, there was a fair on at the Siddheshwar temple, i think it was a shravan somvar, and we were fascinated by the bags on sale there, and for just Rs10/-!!!!! we brought back about 50 of them to be given off during haldi kumkum at navaratri, and everyone loves them... that was about 2-3 years back.... even this year, when i went to invite people home for navaratri, they showed me the solapur bag and told me it was greaat!!!!!

Vaishali Dalvi said... [Reply]

hey aarti this bags are as warm as solapuri chadar, they are simply smart, will buy them when I go next to solapur supperb and thank you for wonderfull post

Aarti Badamikar said... [Reply]

@ Anu: It is really good to know that people love these bags. This is truly very inspiring for me.
The idea for giving it on haldi-kumkum is also good...for people to know about products from different cities. This really adds to the significance which most of the time is underestimated in Solapur itself.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful experience.

@ Vaishali: Yes vaishali, these are sooper smart bags. You can buy a dozen of them and not just one!! ;)

Aarti Badamikar said... [Reply]

Comments from FaceBook...

Yashmi Prasad says: super! loved the discovery.......

Rohit Goyal says: hmmmmm........

Vrushali Shinde says: gud1

Nikhil Almeida says: supppperrraa!!!!

Anand Sangam says: im proud of u ... good job..

Chaitalee Dangarwala says: get one for me!!!!! hehehhehehe

Sita Mani says: i loved the 25yr old bag. loved the post too!

Kanika Thakkar says: its so nice to read comments of a bunch of textile obsessed people on a beautiful bag! ;) keep posting aarti!

vapunde said... [Reply]

Sahi ahe...I guess 80% people of solapur uses this Pishvi..

Aarti Badamikar said... [Reply]

@ Vishal: I want to make it 100% then gradually and eventually many other cities too :)

Unknown said... [Reply]

WOW!!! Mast.. no words to describe. khara sangu itki warsha solapurat rahte tya pishvya bagte pan kadhi itkya sundar dislya nahi ;)asach solapurcha nav pudhe aan. keep it up.. good luck..

Cathy said... [Reply]

You have found some beautiful bag examples there - beautifully woven and subtly coloured.

Aarti Badamikar said... [Reply]

Thanks Rujulee and Cathy.
These bags are simply very beautiful.