‘Swaramadhuri’, a ‘singing’ silk saree embedded with eight micro-speakers on its border, has caught the fancy of many traders down south.
Conceptualised by P Mohan, a small-scale designer of Dharmavaram town in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantpur district, the saree has a small iPod at the pallu, which can play as many as 200 songs continuously for four hours.
A 2-GB memory chip is used to support the iPod on the saree. Mohan toiled for two months to come out with this unique design and now the unusual piece has generated a lot of interest and curiosity among silk traders in South India.
B Datta Shiva, the entrepreneur who has purchased the rights of the saree, said “orders are pouring in from showrooms in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh for the supply of the attire.” “It took nearly a month to make one saree. Ten members of our unit continuously worked and finished it,” Shiva said.
The same designer had earlier created sarees with small LED bulbs which he calls the ‘lighting saree’. He had also made silk sarees using sandalwood.
“There is a great demand for the sandalwood saree. We get orders from all over the south. But due to time consuming process, we are not able to meet the demand,” Shiva said. For the saree, Mohan claims he uses pure sandalwood purchased from a Karnataka government-owned emporium.
{{/usCountry}}“There is a great demand for the sandalwood saree. We get orders from all over the south. But due to time consuming process, we are not able to meet the demand,” Shiva said. For the saree, Mohan claims he uses pure sandalwood purchased from a Karnataka government-owned emporium.
{{/usCountry}}With a Rs 300-crore-market for silk sarees and dress materials, Dharmavaram weavers have now pinned their hopes on the success of ‘Swaramadhuri’.