An Artisanal History of Kalam?

The dyed, painted, and printed cotton of the Coromandel Coast from South East India are popularly known as Kalamkari, kalam meaning a pen and kari indicating to handwork. The waqai or news reports of the Golconda court from the 1670s mention this term, which is perhaps one of the early archival records of the usage of kalamkari in Deccan. A bamboo pen with a thick grip made of cotton and cotton threads is used for making the painted textiles. While the term “kalam” is generally employed to indicate both painted and printed textile, scholarly studies have not clarified how the pen is crucial in printed textile making. During my fieldwork, I found wooden block makers in the Bandar region of Andhra Pradesh, on the Coromandel Coast, use the term kalam to specify the iron engraving tools for block carving. The artisanal usage of this term expands the meaning of kalam beyond a pen and suggests how artisanal understanding of the histories of practice can offer fresh perspectives on material culture histories and the interconnections between painted and printed textile making. Furthermore, the term is also used by the Bidri metalware artisans from the Deccan region to denote the iron engraving tools for carving, which suggests that dyed textile making in the Coromandel region is also connected to other craft activities in Deccan. This case study, focused on the term kalam, calls for better integration of artisanal insights into the scholarly studies on textiles and material culture. In my paper, I explore the etymological roots of the term kalam in literary works, and its use and transformation as a tool, among the textile practitioners and other artisanal communities in the Deccan and Coromandel regions.