The exquisite Nakshi Kantha industry of Jamalpur
The district is also officially branded as the ‘Land of Nakshi Kantha’ by the government. Currently, there are around 300-400 physical and online shops selling Nakshi Kantha in Jamalpur town
The other day, as we were roaming the streets of Jamalpur town, we were appreciating the congestion-free roads, the tree canopy and the peaceful neighbourhoods.
What I did not expect was any cluster of shops to catch my attention, as I'm really not into shopping. Of course, when I come across a shop in the Hill Tracts displaying eye-catching locally hand-loomed clothing, or a shop in an ancient Haor haat selling bamboo products such as mathals (conical hats worn by farmers) or baskets, that's a different case.
That is exactly what happened in Jamalpur. As we took the Madrassah Road towards the bank of the dying Puratan Brahmaputra River, some distinct patterns and flashes of bright colours from the shops pulled me like a magnet.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
We discovered another gem in the country's craft and culture – the fabulous Nakhsi Kantha of Jamalpur.
No wonder the local handcrafted item obtained a geographical indication (GI) earlier this year. The district is also officially branded as the 'Land of Nakshi Kantha' by the government, and the Nakshi Kantha design made the cover of the brand book published by the district administration.
While Nakshi Kantha is a local tradition, it has garnered widespread appreciation around the country, leading to the continuous growth of the industry over the last two decades. The kantha is also exported on a limited scale by some entrepreneurs.
Depending on the intricacy of the design, the kanthas are sold for a wide price range, between Tk1,800 to Tk10,000 and above.
Currently, there are around 300-400 physical and online shops selling Nakshi Kantha in Jamalpur town. The kantha is made and sewn by women living in villages across the district.
The labour-intensive industry essentially creates employment for rural women, and the speciality about this particular employment is that the women can do this from their homes, while taking care of their families.
"Nakshi Kantha workers can earn money from their homes, which they can use to send their children to school, or help the family," said Jayanti Kairi, the proprietor of Dolon Fashion located in the Madrassa Road in Jamalpur town.
"Once the women are done feeding the family members in the morning, and sending the children to school, they sit with a kantha to sew the assigned design on it. You'll find them almost in every house in Jamalpur," Jayanti said.
She, of course, added that this does not apply much to women living in the town.
"Even the number of beggars in Jamalpur has plummeted thanks to the work opportunity the expanding industry has created," she emphasised.
Jayanti said she has artisans working for her in Islampur, Dewanganj and Sadar Upazila of the district.
Jayanti has 55 artisans associated with her business. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, she had 145 artisans, but the financial loss caused by the shutdown led her to downsize her business.
The artisans work in a group of 10, directly under a team leader who is entrusted with the materials and the work. The design is usually printed on the fabric manually, but more intricate designs are nowadays done with the help of computers.
The tracing mark can sometimes be noticed under the thread work on a new kantha, which is usually gone after one or two washes, the trader said. Various floral and geometric patterns are most popular as kantha designs, but folk animal arts are also embroidered on them.
The thread work may take several weeks or months depending on the details of the design, as well as on how many people are working on that kantha at a time.
Artisans are paid Tk250 to Tk1,500 after the completion of the work, again depending on the fineness of the design.
"Instead of gold, people nowadays prefer a nice Nakshi kantha or Nakshi bed cover as wedding gifts. Gold ornaments are rarely worn, but these items can be used everyday, hence, more useful," said Jayanti.
The popularity of the kantha needed no description from the entrepreneur, because our interview with her was repeatedly interrupted by customers flocking to the store, checking different products and leaving, with or without buying them.
Talking about the tradition of Jamalpur's Nakshi Kantha, an elderly customer, Rezia Begum, who came with her two daughters, said when she was younger she saw rural women sewing kantha in groups of three to five. She said these shops were not there back then.
The Nakshi Kantha manufactured in Jamalpur goes to major cities of the country, including Dhaka, Sylhet, Chattogram and Rajshahi.
"A customer of mine sends two to three kanthas to the US every month," Jayanti said.
Another entrepreneur, Acchia Khatun Bela, said she received training from MIDAS (Micro Industries Development Assistance and Services) and started her business – Moom Hastashilpa – back in 2006.
There are even older shops in the town though. College Road's Bunon has been there since 2001, when the current proprietor Nasrin Jahan took over her father's business after his death who had a shop elsewhere in the town.
Bela said the Nakshi Kantha made in the past was much simpler; with the passage of time, the complexity of the design has soared.
Ideal WFH for artisans
Nakshi Kantha artisans work from their village homes, and we heard most households have at least one member working in the industry.
It did not take long to get a glimpse of reality.
We were at Vatara Bazar in Sharishabari Upazila, about 20 km from Jamalpur town, to look for a man named Sultan, a team leader who could connect us to the artisans of the village.
The first shopkeeper we inquired about Sultan said he did not know him, but knowing the purpose of our visit, he said there were many artisans around and we could go to his home because a neighbour was involved in the Nakshi Kantha industry.
We took a short rickshaw van ride through a herringbone road with a thick tree canopy and reached the home of Bakhtiar Khan, a sexagenarian man who was preparing for the Jummah prayer.
Bakhtiar said he worked in the industry for many years. He struggled to figure out exactly how many years. "My wife and I have been doing this since the beginning. We were the first to get involved," said Bakhtiar. Soon, his wife Anju Ara and daughter arrived with samples of their works. Along came another woman, Mariam who also sews kanthas.
Anju seemed pretty sure she had been embroidering kanthas for 35 years, since her marriage. Mariam, a younger sister-in-law of Anju, has been doing this for 22 years. Anju said her daughter, who lives in Madarganj, also sews Kantha. Bakhtiar, however, has stopped doing this due to old age.
"I don't do this anymore, but many other people have taken my place," he said with a laugh.
Again, he failed to give even a guesstimate number of how many people sewed kantha in his village, but we surely got an idea.
Nakshi Kantha is made in different places of the country, but most prominent in this craft are Jamalpur, Mymensingh, Faridpur, Jashore and Rajshahi.
In the past, preloved sharis were sewn together to appropriate thickness and decorated with threads to make kanthas. Nowadays traders purchase whole yards of cloth from wholesale markets such as Islampur in Dhaka and use that in kantha-making.
