In Madanpura, a Women-Led Final Touch Makes Every Banarasi Saree Flawless

Shaheen held a nearly finished Banarasi saree up to the afternoon light. The fabric lay across her lap as she moved a small blade carefully along its underside, cutting away the fine threads left behind after weaving. “This work may seem small from the outside, but the saree won’t look right if it’s not done properly. Every thread has to be perfect,” she said, her hands moving across the fabric with practised precision. Shaheen, who is in her late forties, was doing katorna, the process of cutting extraneous threads from the reverse of a woven saree. She had learnt the work from her mother-...