Visalakshi Ramaswamy and the resilient kottan

Not everybody in Chennai is aware of of Manjal in MRC Nagar and its jewel-coloured kottans. Quiet and unassuming from the outdoors however a hive of exercise inside as customised baskets, normal from palm leaf or from plastic, are packed at breakneck pace. They make their strategy to a few of the nation’s most high-profile weddings, and usually embody sari bins that showcase Chettinad’s most interesting basket weaving custom.

That mentioned, for many of us, that is the place we cease for little jewel reward bins or seashore, picnic and wine luggage earlier than journeys. A buddy and colleague takes hers (the plastic model) to the health club. It seems the metropolis’s Japanese and Korean residents additionally favour the intricately woven plastic baskets for his or her cheery designs and sturdiness. As for Visalakshi Ramaswamy, the singular power behind M. Rm. Rm Cultural Foundation that runs Manjal, you can be fortunate for those who discover her there. For Ramaswamy, 79, prefers to work out of her dwelling subsequent door as an alternative.

Visalakshi Ramaswamy

Behind the scenes

The craft revivalist, fabulous cook dinner (she co-wrote The Chettinad Cookbook just a few years in the past) and designer has been busy for over quarter of a decade reviving palm leaf kottan basketry, the Kandanghi sari and the use of Athangudi tiles and lime egg paste in buildings. She is one among the finest ambassadors of the crafts from the 75 ancestral villages of the Chettiar neighborhood in south Tamil Nadu however prefers to work behind the scenes.

Kottan weavers
| Photo Credit:
Catherine Karnow

“I hate being in the newspaper,” she says once we meet one morning, “I am very diffident. I meet so many young people and don’t mind doing it in a quiet way but I hate being on stage.” Ramaswamy married very younger however has been invested in the crafts since her twenties. “When my daughter was about 10, I started designing furnishings and saris, for myself and mates,’’ she says. Those saris have been in demand – a set of 100 have been offered inside hours by the Chennai retail retailer Shilpi again then – and she reveals she nonetheless will get enquiries. 

“Mrs. Visalakshi Ramaswamy may not have had a formal education in design but that is what makes her very original and offbeat in her thinking. She is a bit hesitant about starting new projects but is very sincere. Right now she is putting together a strong team, which is important. ”Benny KuriakoseArchitect, who has labored together with her at DakshinaChitra and has designed a lot of her homes

Craft with goal

But her first huge venture was the kottans that the ‘aachis’ or aged girls in the neighborhood used to work on as a pastime craft, for use at auspicious occasions. “I wanted to revive it but it was only made in purples and reds. I thought long and hard about why crafts die — when you don’t make a living off it. It has to be of benefit to everybody. So I decided to turn it from a ritualistic object into a marketable object,” she remembers.

She admits that it was a problem initially to get girls from the villages to come back and practice beneath the aachis. “They said the government had also offered them training for two weeks, gave them a stipend, bought everything back from them and then that was that. These women then went back to their farming,” she says, and narrates how she made a dedication to maintain them. 

Products at Manjal

Today, the Foundation works with over 100 girls and is self-funded. Their crafts have been showcased in Scotland, Japan, Thailand, even Cuba and at exhibitions corresponding to Chettinad: An Enduring Legacy at IIC Delhi again in 2023. Last month, 25 years of Project Kottan was celebrated with Fibre to Form, a showcase at The Folly in Chennai’s Amethyst.

The high quality retrospective featured new kottan experiments with beads (a revival of designs that initially featured Czechoslovakian beads), crochet and indigo. The final has been an uphill activity for the Foundation, what with the leaves being too brittle for indigo. But it seems that they’ve had a breakthrough, courtesy Indigo Art Museum by Arvind Ltd, and there may be extra to come back. 

Pinterest and a museum

“Aachi knows all the trending things,” reveals her communication head, Durga Gopalan, additionally letting on that the grand previous woman is a “Pinterest queen” and loves checking in usually. Her stints at the residing museum, DakshinaChitra, and with Crafts Council have taught her what she must know. “I no longer regret not studying further. I think I have finally got over it,” she says, including that her greatest assist was her husband.

Manjal in MRC Naga

Later this 12 months, Ramaswamy will probably be opening a life-style museum, devoted to the Nattukottai Chettiar neighborhood, in her 125-year-old ancestral mansion, referred to as the MRM home in Kanadukathan in Karaikudi. “It will have the utensils we used, our way of life, our lifestyle rituals and ancestral worship. There is so much about the community that must come from the heart,” she concludes. 

The girls weavers
| Photo Credit:
Catherine Karnow

The exhibition will probably be travelling to the Chettinad Festival later this 12 months. On Instagram @manjalshop

Published – July 12, 2025 08:50 am IST