Kerala weavers heal the world with Ayur Vastra

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Weavers in Balaramapuram, near Kerala’s capital, can’t cope with the demand for their unique product: Ayur Vastra. These are fabrics dyed with essences of herbs with medicinal properties like neem, tulsi, sida and turmeric.

The `healing clothes’ —as those who wear them would like to call them— earned the weavers Rs 10 crore in exports last year. This year, they are looking forward to exports worth Rs 50 crore.

The weavers produce a wide range of fabrics including sarees, bedsheets and dress materials using medicinal dyes, instead of synthetic or other natural colouring materials and export these to the United States, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore and Jordan.

Once patronised by the Travancore kings, the healer-weavers of Balaramapuram have added Saudi royals to their customer list. “We have been exporting naturally-dyed purdahs to Saudi Arabia. We have sold over a lakh pieces there,’’said K Vijayan, marketing manager of Handloom Weavers’ Development Society , the trade body that networks about 6,500 makers of medicinal garments..

Vijayan and his brother Rajan have found a means to boost the ailing rural economy with the knowhow handed down from their great granduncle Ayyappan Vaidyar, who was the chief physician for the Travancore royal family.

“We renewed the practice and made these garments whenever people wanted. Later, we organised ourselves into a society as the demand increased,” Rajan, chief technician of the society, said. The society has facilitated export of Ayur Vastra to the -foreign markets.

The society has got central assistance of Rs 1 crore for infrastructure development and clinical research which will begin at the Government Ayurveda College in Thiruvananthapuram next month.  As part of a trial for this research, the college furnished four rooms with medicated coir mats and made patients wear garments dyed with medicinal herbs specific to their illnesses. The results of the experiment are expected to be formally announced later this month but the college sources say the experiment led to speedy recovery of patients.

Vijayan and Rajan hope that India could ``recapture’’ the world textile market as more and more Western countries strictly enforce eco-friendly norms. “The government aid will ensure standardisation of our products. We are already witnessing a huge demand for all kinds of garments, be it silk, wool or jute, dyed with medicines,” Vijayan said.