I missed my brother’s youngest daughter’s wedding for the She Awards…

The first ever The Telegraph She Awards was the reason why I missed my brother’s (Gul) youngest daughter’s wedding. I finally made it to the brunch a day after the wedding! My brother proudly announced about the award at the wedding. He was very cross, though! (Smiles)

Kantha is my life. My heart and soul is in it...

I had to leave my job of a maths lecturer at Loreto Teacher’s Training College because of illness. Otherwise, kantha may not have been a part of my life. I had learned kantha as a 12-year-old girl and did patterns on my mother’s blouse and tea cosies made out of overgrown coats. But I didn’t know it was called kantha! I came to know of ‘kantha’ 30 years ago when I saw it at a Santiniketan craft mela across the road from Calcutta Club. They just had a few shawls and ashon. They had never heard of saris!

Many years ago one day in August these girls got the first three kantha saris to my house. One came with red-and-black paisley motifs, one a copy of one my printed sari and another had motifs from a bedcover of mine.
Out of no preconceived notion we thought we had to help these girls. My parents’ greatest motto in life was ‘care and share’ and ‘wipe a tear’. When we saw these girls in the villages, my first thought was how could we help them. Again, marketing kantha was not on my mind.

Malika (daughter), in the meantime, started going to Loreto College and started making kurtas with little panels of kantha. She was also no artist and we depended on the girls to produce proper designs. Malika was the one who said, ‘Mummy, why don’t we sell these?’

Kantha helped me overcome a lot of the depression that illness brings. By this time the number of girls from Santiniketan was reducing because it was too long a journey for them. On the way to the airport, there is a small village where they heard about us. They used to do little pieces. We started giving our first small pieces to them. When we found they were doing good work, we gave them saris and dupattas too. There was no bahar ka paisa.
Then we set up Malika’s Kantha Collection & Trading Pvt. Ltd to take stock. This was by 1990. Malika got married in 1991. Then it just grew. This is how the whole thing began. We had two exhibitions in London. Then we went to New York, Washington and Japan. This is how kantha spread, without me having ever visualised that it would gain such popularity.

My heart and soul is in it. It’s my life. It took me a year to get the essence of it into my being. There is a lot of passion that goes into kantha. This, along with my maths books, kept me going. These girls would bring their stories of woe and come and put their heads on my lap and cry. When we visited the villages, they would really bring out all their money to feed us!

Kantha and Calcuttans…

Shirin Paul and her daughter Priya brought kantha to Park hotel. The first kantha kurta that Malika did while she was in college, she gave to Shirin Paul. The Pauls arranged the first kantha exhibition in Calcutta at The Park in the late ‘80s.

Viren Shah (former governor) took kantha to another level. The Ladies Study Group had a meeting in Raj Bhavan and I was invited to be on the panel. I met him in his office the next day where I told him about kantha and Calcutta Foundation (the NGO, more on it later!). I had taken a couple of pieces of kantha to show him. One of them was a black one with two peacocks. In a couple of days I got a call saying they liked it for the office. They bought kantha for a lot of rooms in Raj Bhavan. He ordered a bandhgala too. He and his wife were very supportive. We started a Calcutta Foundation childrens’ programme too, which, after 15 years, is still on at Raj Bhavan.

Then Gopalkrishna Gandhi (former governor) came. I had known him before he became a governor. He ordered about 12 wall hangings for the ballroom. Then, of course, M.K. Narayanan also helped a lot.

The SHE Foundation...

It’s the CSR wing of Malika’s Kantha Collection. There are about 300 girls registered under SHE (Self Help Enterprise), but there are about 800 girls working for us. Whatever extra money we had, we’d put in SHE. It’s all about bettering their lives. We would give them Puja gifts. We started health camps soon after.

Calcutta Foundation, the NGO...

Fran (Frances) Caterini, wife of Dino Caterini (former director of American Center), was a musician. She went to Oxford Mission and gathered a group of eight boys and started what became the Calcutta Foundation Orchestra, training them enough so that they can earn their livelihood from it. I used to think Mozart and mozzarella were siblings! I told her that, but she pulled me into this. Then they had to go away. We gave away the orchestra to The Calcutta School of Music 10 years back. The Foundation is still with me.

Steve Waugh’s innings...

India and Australia were playing in Calcutta. I read in the papers that Steve Waugh likes to help people. I sat and wrote a letter from my desktop. I made three copies… one I sent to the general manager of Taj Bengal, one to the manager of the Australian cricket team, and one to Steve. Next morning I got a call from Steve. I took him to Udayan. They didn’t have a girls’ wing because they didn’t have the money. I had it in my mind that I would help Reverend Stevens raise funds.

The kids at Udayan all knew Steve! They started playing cricket with him. I told him about my plans of a fundraiser. He said he wanted to go see a leprosy colony. The people there also recognised him. Can you imagine?! We saw in the news later that he had said he would be coming back to raise funds for Udayan!

Steve’s wife (Lynette) called soon after saying he was ready to come for the fundraiser. The fundraiser for the girls’ wing at Udayan was held at Taj Bengal. Steve came and Malika insisted that I have a dinner in my house for Steve. We raised more than Rs 20 lakh. Steve was there to inaugurate the Nivedita House in 1999.... He is very affectionate!

Kantha, maths and me…

We have gone into jackets and the cotton kurtis have done well. I don’t feel like giving up but I wish I could reduce my responsibilities a little bit... Malika and I cannot do kantha together! (Laughs) She likes bling! I feel kantha should show itself. I am 78. I am still writing maths books!

As told to Saionee Chakraborty