“THE JOURNEY OF COTTON TO CLOTH”

This summer I got a chance to overlook through one of India’s traditional occupations in my village.  

Weaving is one of the traditional occupations of India. The journey of a ball of cotton to a fancy dress we wear; involves the hard work of many people and is indeed an exciting journey to discover! It all begins with the cotton plant where it is plucked and processed in mills and then ends with beautiful dresses. The cotton mills take the challenge!

          It starts with a process called mixing where the cotton is all shuffled and mixed.

 
                    Then the cotton travels through the blow room laps where the cotton and its seeds are separated.

           Next the cotton travels through the carding and drawing processes where they are converted into threads.

          The simplex process converts these threads into even thinner threads.

          The spinning and cone winding process groups these threads into bunches.

                                       The spinning and cone winding process groups these threads into bunches.

          The journey is still not over! These bundles are dyed and then sold to wholesalers. These wholesalers sell these dyed bundles to spinners. These spinners spin these yarns into equal bundles with the help of the spinning wheel. They exchange these spun threads with money from wholesalers. Now weavers buy these spun threads from wholesalers and weave it into dresses and exchange it for money from the wholesalers again.  Here the spinners, weavers, and the, mill workers receive a very less price for their hard work while the finished dress material is sold at a very high rate.

Mahatma Gandhi once said “Do spin and spin after due deliberation. Let those who spin wear khaddar and let no one who wears (KHADI) fail to spin. 'Due deliberation' means realization” that charkha or act of spinning is the symbol of non-violence. Ponder; it will be self-evident."