First Published Aug 29, 2022, 1:57 PM IST
Have you heard of Dhaka Muslin? It was a unique type of fabric that existed in Bengal earlier. It was not easy to make. For that he had to go through 16 different ways. The fabric is so soft that you don’t even feel like you’re wearing it. Kings and famous as fans. The British also tried to acquire it. Vinaya Raj VR has detailed about this fabric in his Facebook post.
Read the note written by Vinaya Raj VR:
Dhaka muslin is a unique fabric that has been made in Bengal for thousands of years. A plant growing on the banks of the Meghna river, when fully grown, produces a single yellow flower twice a year, which later turns into pearly white cotton. Not only was this very soft cotton very difficult to weave, but it had to go through 16 different processes to turn it into yarn.
As each of these was unique, each job was done in each village. The cotton yarn is first cleaned by the extremely sharp teeth in the jaws of the Bowel catfish found in the lakes of Bengal, and then it is spun. Since it is a short yarn, it does not need good moisture to spin, so young women used to spin it on boats in the morning and evening. Older people did not do this work because it was too light to be seen. Next was weaving with thousands of threads, a process that lasted for months. Because of the amazing softness of this fabric, it was rumored in Europe that it could not have been woven by humans, but rather by mermaids.
This cotton fabric was in demand all over the world. This extremely thin fabric, inaccessible to ordinary people, was worn by the goddesses of ancient Greece. Mughal kings were fans of it. A variety of fabrics were made from them, but the “mouth-woven” variety was extremely soft and only as heavy as air.
An 18 meter long cloth could be carried in a small cage carrying tobacco powder. This cloth, which was so transparent that it did not appear to be worn, was the private property of the rich. Dhaka muslin was the most expensive fabric of that time. Queen Marie Antoinette of France, Napoleon’s wife Josephine Bonaparte and Jane Austen were all fans of it. There is even a story that Aurangzeb scolded his daughter for walking around in a dress made of Dhaka muslin cloth folded in seven.
When everything was going on like that, the British came to Bengal. The Wonders of the British Empire exhibition held in Britain in 1851 displayed more than 100,000 items from various parts of the empire. At that time the price of Dacca Muslin was 26 times higher than the best silk. The British wanted to monopolize it. They forced the Bengalis to weave more. But that little cotton could not be turned into clothes so easily. Eight grams of yarn was obtained from one kilogram of cotton. Those who paid for the work in advance had to pay back the entire purchase price if the quality of the product fell short. When the demand increased, they tried to make this cloth in Britain itself.
In 1784, a thousand workers were weaving cloth under the great clothier Samuel Oldnow. But the quality of cloth they made did not even come close to Dhaka Muslin. When war, poverty and earthquake all came together, the weavers of Bengal left this work without stopping and went to other work. That way of making clothes, which could only be perfected if a large number of people joined together, disappeared.
Dhaka muslin has become an item found only in European museums today. There is not a single cloth left in Bangladesh. Not sure which plant it is. No seeds were available, and the plant’s DNA was found in dried leaves found inside a 19th-century book in Kew Gardens, London. With the help of satellites, the Meghna riverbank has been scoured with old pictures of the plant. All possible plants were compared. Finally found the supposed plant. (Gossypium arboreum var. neglecta (Phuti karpas)) They cultivated the plant for the first time in 2015 after a century.
While not entirely sure that it was the plant, it was only when we tried to collect and weave its cotton that we realized that its technology was even more difficult. They didn’t even know what the fifty or so tools needed to make the yarn were, they made many new ones for it. By 2021, they have woven cloth at a level that can match the old ones. They were sold for lakhs of rupees. Bangladesh government is also giving good encouragement for this. Weavers in Bangladesh are confident that once they can produce their silken Dhaka muslin to the same standard.
Last Updated Aug 29, 2022, 1:57 PM IST