Banarasi silk – intricate combination of silk and zari

Today I read a news that , the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, announced a huge financial aid to boost the textile industry in Banaras. I feel this boost is really required for the weavers of Banarasi silk.It is a good support to the weavers . Also this reminded about long pending post I had planned , to write about Banaras silk. (Already I have written a post about an atique Banaras silk here.)
 The bright colors, delicate silk combined with zari makes it dream of saree lovers like me :-). The elegance and beauty are effect of  the hard-work of the weavers. It takes 15 days to 6 months to weave a Banaras saree , depending on the complexity of the design. Here you can see a red Banarasi saree, with heavy zari work all over the saree.One can imagine the hard-work behind the making of this saree.

Banarasi saree is manufactured in Varanasi. Its a cottage industry, run majorly by Momin Ansari Muslims. The designs are influenced Mughal designs. In ancient time,  Varaasi was famous for weaving of cotton, gradually the weavers switched over to silk weaving. Recently when I visited Varanasi, I got a chance to visit a weaver. I could capture the image of  hand-loom machine used for weaving. As it was night when I visited there, so the weavers had stopped the weaving for the day. So I could not  see the  weaving :(.

 But collected some information about designing and making of the saree, and also gained some knowledge  on different kinds of designs used etc. I will share about the details in my next post.

Until then, 

-Ranjana