SHE - Self Help Enterprise Just like a needle is to thread, so is Shamlu to Kantha: a name now synonymous with this beloved traditional craft of Bengal.
Meet Shamlu Dudeja. A revivalist, a mother, a teacher, an author, a revolutionary.
Not an artist or a designer, but one with great sensitivity towards beauty; her keen eye recognised the need for reviving this dying art 30 years ago. There has been no stopping her ever since.
Each piece of work, she professes, is a labour of love and passion,weaving, in its patterns, the stories of the lives of simple women, their joys, their sorrows and their aspirations.
It is a matter of great pride for her to have been able to take Kantha from rural Bengal to the rest of the world. Thirty years on, she still maintains her stance, "I live to support Kantha and the women behind it."