Shopian: Though Kashmiri embroidery works are famous throughout the world, artisans of Shopian’s Batpora market are the most famous embroiders in Kashmir for the quality of their craftsmanship.
One can see on any given day throngs of women at their shops, giving their cloths for ‘Tilla’ embroidery designs. The Batpora market is indeed known as ‘Tilla market’ because of the many embroidery shops specialising in the Tilla design here.
About a dozen shops in Batpora market are dealing in Tilla embroidery work and get orders from the entire Kashmir, including from Srinagar and frontier district Kupwara.
Muhammad Ishaq Naikoo, a 34-year-old artisan who is the second generation of his family in the craft after his father Ghulam Hassan, said that 20 persons, mostly girls, do the embroidery designs and that he gets orders from all over Kashmir.
“We have about 10 shops in Batpora market and around 200 people are associated with these shops, since years,” he said.
Naikoo said that he has been in this field for eight years and before him his father was doing Tilla embroidery work in the Batpora market, for 28 years.
“Tilla work of Shopian is famous because of its artisans. Otherwise we have the same material as other places of Kashmir,” he said.
Another artisan, Waseem Ahmad Chopan, said that they use indigenous Hangul brand mixed with a Japanese imported brand which is second in grade. “There is much demand for this Tilla silver thread, as the pure indigenous one is too costly and people therefore opt for the Japanese,” he said.
Chopan said that earlier, most of the people in the field were males, but it fetches them less returns now which has forced many to choose other jobs and now majority of the workers are girls.
“We are hardly able to earn Rs 8,000 a month even if we work from 8am to 6pm every day. It is like digging a well with a needle,” he said.
Naikoo said that some of the artisans in the market also carry out machine works, which costs less to them as well as to the customer, but there is little demand for machine works in Kashmir or outside.
“The orders we get from all parts of Kashmir is because of our hand work,” he said, adding that he recently received an order from Patiala in Punjab, though such orders are rare and none in the market has any online portal or advertised address to receive orders.
He said that 90 percent of the cost of Tilla work is being charged for the manual labour, while material costs contribute only 10 percent to the total price.
“There is enough local demand but when the work is not providing two meals a day, how will one survive on it and pass it on to next generations?” Naikoo added.
Artisans in Batpora complained that there is no government scheme to promote this art or to help it reach other regions and countries. “There is no male newcomer in the field and soon the women would also leave it because of meagre gains, and another important handicrafts sector in Kashmir will die,” Chopan said.
He said that during the peak marriage season, artisans work all night and day to get orders done on time, an arduous task that has affected their eyesight and caused ailments in the neck.
“Only when someone observes our efforts can he tell how much we should earn from this labour. But even a manual labourer earns more than artisans like us,” Chopan rued.

Raashid Hassan