Bangalore:
US president Barack Obama's whirlwind tour of India ended on Tuesday. But 69-year-old weaver Narayanappa R from Bangalore is an embittered man because all his efforts to personally meet Obama and gift him a three feet by three feet silk stole that he and his wife had hand woven and could be folded and fit into a match box came to a nought.
"I am in no mood to touch my looms, which is all that I have for my livelihood. It will take some time for me to recover from this," says Narayanappa, who had been moving heaven and earth to personally call on Obama to present the 30-gram stole after he came to know that he would not be visiting Bangalore.
Narayanappa had been promised by the chief minister's office that they would help him in realising his dream of meeting Obama.
Narayanappa had made elaborate plans to meet Obama and the First Lady, Michelle, with his wife Kamalamma and gift the stole to the couple. But, in the end, the promises remained only that. The persistent crisis in the state ruling party also compounded Narayanappa's woes as no minister was available to spare a thought to help the artisan realise his dream.
The Bangalore weaver had put his heart into weaving the silk stole, which was a show-stopper at the silk fair held recently in Palace Grounds. It had taken 15 days of non-stop, painstaking work for him and his wife to weave the fabric using local silk material.
"Right from the moment I conceived of the stole, I was clear that it was a gift for Obama and it should reflect our culture. I was driven by the single-minded aim of making it a worthy gift to Obama. The US president is leaving India and he will not even know about my work. All my efforts have gone down the drain," he laments.
Copyright restricted. Under license from
www.3dsyndication.com