Sungudi of Madurai
you must know that any ‘Madurai cotton’ cannot be a Sungudi.
The town of Madurai is famous not just for its temples, especially the Madurai Meenakshi temple, but also for the ‘Sungudi’ saree which was traditionally produced using tie and dye (using natural dyes) method by people from Saurashtra, Gujarat who migrated to Madurai in the 16th century.
The fabric’s traditional popular use is as a saree; the fabric is now also used to make shirts, salwars, shawls, handbags, bed sheets and pillow cases.
The Madurai Sungudi, produced in Madurai city, a cottage industry product, is given protection under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration & Protection) Act (GI Act) 1999 of the Government of India. It was registered by the Controller General of Patents Designs and Trademarks under the title “Madurai Sungudi” and recorded under GI Application number 21, Class 24 – Textile and Textile Goods and Class 25 – Clothing including Sarees and Rumal, as a textile product. The GI tag was approved on 12 December 2005.
Similar to ‘baandhani’ of Gujarat, fabric was hand knotted and dyed to create rows of slightly irregular circles. Unlike Baandhani however, the Sungudi of Madurai does not have elaborate designs being done (in the tie & dye method). The tie and dye method itself has very few practitioners because of the time and labour intensive process that makes it a very expensive technique ( compared to the popular printing method).
In recent years, in view of tough competition from other textile fabrics, to meet the market demand this fabric, “sungudi” as it is commonly known, is made with modern designs and techniques of block printing, wax printing and screen printing.
Kora/ unbleached saris (with or without zari borders) are block printed using the wax resist method and then dyed in the required colours. The areas where the wax has been applied stay free of the colour. The designed portion is either left white or dyed again in a contrasting colour to create interesting saris in bright colours.
The dyed saris are then drip dried and washed in clean, running water to remove the wax.
The washed saris are then dried completely and sent for starching and finishing.
On an average, each block printer works on 40 to 50 saris while at least a hundred saris are dyed each day at the Unit we visited.
As a buyer, you must know that any ‘Madurai cotton’ cannot be a Sungudi. One finds a lot of saris being sold as Sungudi- even if they have no form of the art (hand knotted, block printed or wax resist). It is like buying a Leheriya without the ‘leher’ or wave patterns or an ikat without the tie and dye patterns.
For block printed and wax resist Sungudi- Cooptex has a huge variety. For traditional hand knotted Sungudi- AK Ramesh of Sagambari Crafts
Ph-94430 34187 8122817170
sungudiramesh@gmail.com , vasumathiramesh63@gmail.com
Savitha Suri is a textile enthusiast and works in documenting textile history & traditions. She heads the WICCI – Maharashtra Handloom Council.
email: pravaaha.communications@gmail.com
Very well explained. Many times, SUNGDI term is used for madurai cotton saree.