A skink shoots past M Susheela, disappearing behind a clump of logs behind her. Seated on the mud floor, she continues to weave, chuckling at my panic. “Relax, it’s harmless,” she assures me, sliding the palm-sized shuttle through a sheet of cotton threads at the pit loom. “I’ve seen worse.” The threads — a combination of black and olive green — will take the shape of a jamakkalam that is part of an export order for her employer, Thillaiyappa Textiles.

It is unlike the colour scheme of the typical Bhavani jamakkalam, and signals a shift from tradition. Such experiments are commonplace at the thari kottagai where Susheela works. The space holds tile-roofed weaving sheds where 42 weavers work on 20 looms in Bhavani, 106 kilometres from Coimbatore.

There are around 30 weaver cooperative societies in and around the town that makes the GI-tagged jamakkalams, with nearly 200 weavers working in nearby villages such as Kuruppanaickenpalayam, Paruvachi, Anthiyur, and Periyamolapalayam.

Most of them are the last generation of weavers who have not passed on the skill to their children. “Jamakkalam is a niche product and something has to be done to change this,” says 28-year-old Thillaiyappa MN Subhaz, whose father K Nagarajan owns Thillaiyappa Textiles. Subhaz and his father, a master weaver, are trying to reinterpret the carpet with the help of their experienced team.

Jamakkalam has been seeing a resurgence over the past few years. Designer Vino Supraja, for instance, presented her collection Weave: A Bhavani Tribute at the London Fashion Week 2025. She worked with a master weaver to feature the bright stripes of the fabric in handbags, apart from western silhouettes made with patch-worked fabrics inspired by the jamakkalam.

Then, there is Chennai-based Indru that makes chic handbags with jamakkalam, complete with leather trimmings and handles. Their bags are priced from ₹6000. The Dakshin Studio, an artisanal art and craft brand, also works with jamakkalam, featuring them in duffle bags in 2022. Ramraj too has come out with a range of jamakkalams done in colour combinations of dark purple, white and cream, also introducing totes in powder blue and yellow.

Thillaiappa makes laptop bags, totes, sling bags, grocery bags, coasters, cushions, wall hangings and even shirts with jamakkalam. Subhaz supplies to several brands such as Inaki, Koodai by Saras, and The Dakshin Studio, also selling on their own website and marketing themselves on social media.

As someone who has seen firsthand the fall of the jamakkalam, Subhaz wants to revive it. “People need to know that such a product exists,” he says, adding that for that, it has to be packaged differently. He regularly ships the carpets to the US, UK, Malaysia, and Singapore, and hopes to create a market for their other products as well. “If more orders come in, we will be able to offer better pay for our weavers,” he adds.

They first started making grocery bags. “All of us carried bags made of jamakkalam to school in our younger years,” recalls Nagarajan. They then got sling and laptop bags tailored in Bengaluru. “We wanted a premium finish and found someone who could offer that, although the end product worked out to be expensive,” says Subhaz.

Jamakkalam bags are quite the rage on social media, with several brands selling them for prices that range from ₹2,700 to even ₹9,500. The weavers who created the base fabric, are unaffected by this trend. A Raju, for instance, who is weaving a 10 feet-wide jamakkalam with another weaver, merely shrugs when asked if he was happy with how the bags had turned out. “None of this will help us unless we get better pay,” he says, passing the shuttle at the pit loom.

The weavers make ₹15 to ₹16 for weaving one sq ft. “Ask Border-kaarar; he makes more than all of us and always has interesting things to say,” he chuckles, glancing at his neighbour A Durairaj. The 71-year-old, among their most experienced, weaves silk-bordered jamakkalams with ornate peacock and parrot motifs. His colleagues have nicknamed him Border-kaarar since he is the only one who weaves with silk.

The task requires precision and skill, something that Durairaj mastered when he was 17 years old. He makes up to ₹2,500 for a silk jamakkalam. “I have taught 10 weavers this technique over the years and today, only three of them are alive,” he says. Silk jamakkalams make for exquisite wall décor and can also be framed. Subhaz is working with architect firms such as Thinai to incorporate them in interior design.

On first glance, jamakkalam weavers appear to be at peace with the world, with just them and their threads and loom. They listen to music while they work — Raju and his colleagues also listen to films on the phone, their latest being Kadhalikka Neramillai. They laugh and pull each other’s legs, smoke and drink tea together during breaktime.

But they are far tougher than they look — they stubbornly hold on to a line of work that refuses to improve their lives. Many of them do so since they don’t have a choice or simply because they love to weave. There have been times when they have revolted against their bosses for a pay hike. Durairaj recalls how in 1972, they held one of their biggest strikes, with workers refusing to work unless they were given a hike of five paisa.

“We are part of a trade union and strikes are common around the festive season such as Deepavali,” says Susheela. Their demands are usually met, and Subhaz says that they choose to keep their weavers happy even if they incur losses in business.

Most of Susheela’s colleagues, like her, lead a hand-to-mouth existence. “This job has also given me a lot,” she says. She raised her daughter by the loom. “I would tie a thottil on the wooden beam of the loom, and would rock the baby with one hand while I pushed the shuttle with the other,” she recalls. Most women bring their babies to work, and it is common to see cradles tied to the loom and tree branches in the vicinity.

Despite such perks, the freedom to choose their work hours, and the meditative effect of the looms that spill out lengths of candy-hued jamakkalams, these men and women vow to never pull their children into their line of work. “Why would I? Look,” says Susheela, pointing to what looks like a pile of wood. “They are all looms that went silent after people stopped weaving to take up jobs in textile companies in the surrounding towns,” she adds. She has seen looms end up as firewood at local tea shops. Nagarajan adds that handwoven Bhavani jamakklams also face stiff competition from cheaper powerloom ones from Solapur.

The latest line of products offers hope, albeit a dim one. Subhaz is constantly trying out new products; their pastel shirts, for instance, which were sold online, found lots of takers in Delhi, which Subhaz says can work for winter instead of woollens.

Right now, though, many of these products are yet to reach the mainstream market. “Government support will give jamakkalams better visibility,” he says. He hopes to create a Government-recognised weaving cluster in which everything, right from weaving to packaging of the end product, is done under one roof. Will their innovations give a new lease of life to the weavers of Bhavani? “There is a 50/50 chance,” Subhaz says: “We are willing to give this our best shot.”