Gaata Katha

The journey of GaataKatha started in the month of April, 2015  when Mrs Jayanthi Ramanan and Mr Ram Ramanan visited Kashi and  witnessed the distress environment of weaver communities. This led us to tour across India to study the hardship of weaving communities.

Our team visited every nook and corner of various Indian states to understand the plight of the handloom weaver population of this vast developing country.

We travelled from Kashi to Kanyakumari to meet weavers, to hear their stories and to understand their needs.

Our research and travel led us to learn about the poverty levels of our weaving communities, how the so called educated people loot them by purchasing their products at rock bottom price and selling the same at different metro cities with 100 to 1000% profit margin under different brand names. Sometimes the cheap imitation of their products introduced in the market, bring the weavers market down by pushing them to quit their profession and seek job elsewhere. 

We took this project under our wings, to educate the weavers, support the existing art and revive the fading art, to create a customer base for them by marketing their products and to set an example for the next generation of weavers that “What their parents are doing is a prestigious art form of India, they should be proud of it” and we hope they follow their parents steps and stay back to support them instead of migrating to other cities to seek jobs.

The Project

To create an exclusive online platform for the Indian handloom weavers to showcase their products to  the global audience, we partnered with EthniqDiva, an initiative by women entrepreneurs . This platform, https://gaatakatha.com   will further optimise the supply chain and bring consumers directly in contact with the producers of high quality handloom clothing, home decor, handicrafts, etc eliminating middlemen. An equal share of proceeds from the new venture to the Gaata project will be used for the upliftment of the weaving community through their initiatives in the areas of health, education, women empowerment, etc

 Aside from wider range of products at affordable prices, consumers can buy in good conscience knowing that they are helping conserve local arts, traditions and in turn improving the livelihood of our weavers.

Weaving stories across India..

We’ve adopted many weavers nationwide – weavers from Narayanpet in Telangana, weavers from Machalipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, skilled craftsmen from Murshidabad, weavers from Banaras etc to name a few. By eliminating the middleman, we’re able to provide them with a more lucrative, sustainable business model.

Additionally, we educate them on better practices, while also bringing our educational support and overall development module to their girl children.

As a working model to increase sales for our weavers, we help them in showcasing the sarees in a presentable fashion by photo shooting the sarees/products, getting the right and accurate description for the online portal, regular feedback to our weavers on the sale trend, new designs that are upcoming in the market, offline/online awareness to the global audience about the wonders woven by our local artisans

Today we have around 20 weavers on boarded on the website. Weavers making Kalamkari, Narayanpet, Gadwal, Kancheepuram, linen, Bengal handloom, Uppada, hand painted bishnupuri sarees, Banaras dupion etc to name a few.

For our customer we want to create a unique and memorable shopping experience by offering the following through the platform

• We offer our customers handpicked and curated collection of the very best styles from every nook and corner of India- all on one platform! It will help all the Indians across the globe to access its culture and ethnic wear at one stop online cultural boutique. We offer you curated and handpicked saris, designer blouses, dupattas / stoles, Authentic Trousseau Planning , Handcrafted Silver Jewellery , ethnic clothing for your little princess and much more...
• We have fashion experts in our team who have created looks by carefully matching exclusive sarees with accessories in our recommended looks section. Our experts will regularly give our customers fashion tips and suggestions.
• We are attempting to build various services around the products we offer. We have started with few services like stitching fall/pico for sari’s etc.
• Our Indo-fusion section, offer a wide range of Indian accessories that you can flaunt on western wear.
• We are soon launching customized saris for our customers. Customers can select a paintings from our files and get it painted on their sari or stole/dupatta; get the sari in their desired colour combination and much more....
• Our tales of India section will take you through a fascinating journey of various states in India, a humble attempt to bring India a little closer to the world. Each month through our platform, we will pick one state of India and talk about its rich culture, fashion, dressing style, food and much more…

Our future Plans

 We want to extend this initiative to every nook and corner of India by giving every weaver a global audience and bringing a sustainable livelihood. Our team has charted out a plan to travel to some of the remote regions, talk to the weaver/artisan families there and come up with a sustainable plan for them.

We are looking at increasing the sales production for these weavers by getting them raw materials at cheaper prices, build better infrastructure at the looms and get them the right machinery.

 All our work is made possible through the support and generous donations from donors across the globe. They are our extended family, people who stand by us and truly believe in our cause. You can extend your support by shopping on our platform as the proceeds are used for a noble cause.

Extend your support to this initiative while we work towards bringing you the best of India!