For long, Tamil sailors carried a secret when they went to sea. Their vessels were sturdier than anyone else’s, not even the strongest one in the British, Dutch or Portuguese fleets could outperform them. The men spoke not a word about this, until Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama bribed one of them in desperation. “He found out that the answer lay in their sails,” says Xavier Benedict, the founder of AARDE Foundation, a non-profit that is involved in the promotion and conservation of Pulicat. Tamil sails were woven with locally-sourced cotton along the Coromandel Coast and were thicker and sturdier. This cotton is now seeing a revival, thanks to the efforts of his foundation. Xavier has roped in National Award-winning textile printer K. Dakshinamurthy to recreate this fabric, which will be on display at Pulicat on August 27.
Dakshinamurthy has created 16 patterns on Coromandel cotton using block-printing technique. “The designs are intricate and are close to what was in use in the 16th Century in Pulicat,” says the 71-year-old, who now works as a master printer at the Kalakshetra Foundation. “They were used as handkerchiefs back then,” he says.
