Keeping the intriguing Tamil Lambadi art of embroidery alive

Subject : Geography

Section: Places in news

Context:

Porgai Artisan Association Society (PAAS), with 60 plus women, has been making and selling embroidered clothes to ensure that there is awareness about the art form and that it is passed onto the next generation.

Lambadi art of embroidery:

The traditional Tamil Lambadi embroidery designs are all geometrical patterns with squares, rectangles, and circles.
They have also been influenced by the local forests, birds, fruits and flowers.
These are not the same as those of the Banjaras in Andhra Pradesh or the Lambanis in Karnataka. Lambani is more filled in, though the stitches, 42 of them, are quite similar. It don’t use mirrors as much as the others do.
Since 2006, with the facilitation of Tribal Health Initiative, PAAS has revived the craft.
A majority of Porgai’s products are made from organic cotton grown in their own villages.

Lambadi tribal community:

Several hundred years ago, the Lambadi tribals migrated from North Western India to down south for a living. They were a nomadic tribe but ended up settling down in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu. Sittilingi Valley (Tamil Nadu) is the second southernmost settlement of Lambadis in India.

Source: TH