Toda Women Revive 1,000-Year Embroidery Art in Mumbai Show

For thousands of years, Toda women embroidered intricate designs into cloaks and textiles without ever signing their work. That's changing as their sacred art form steps into the spotlight at Mumbai's upcoming exhibition, "Nilgiri Threads - The Art of the Toda."

Anbulakshmi, a Toda artisan, hesitated when asked to embroider her initials on a massive 57x29 inch textile panel. Like generations before her, she'd never claimed ownership of her creations, despite spending countless hours stitching symbols of buffalo horns, sun rays, and vultures in traditional red and black thread.

The breakthrough came from Ramya Reddy, a photographer who founded Coonoor & Co 14 years ago to preserve Toda textile traditions. After showing the women's large-format works at a Hyderabad exhibition last August, the artisans finally understood why their signatures mattered. Their eyes filled with awe seeing their art displayed with the respect it deserved.

The Toda people number fewer than 1,500 today, making every stitch of their embroidery tradition precious. These pastoral communities in the Nilgiris have long centered their lives around buffalo herding and ceremony, with embroidery woven through every ritual.

The journey began when Reddy created "Soul of the Nilgiris," a photography book featuring 2,000 unique hand-embroidered spines. Toda matriarch Mutsin and her daughter-in-law Seetha saw beyond the tourist trinkets flooding Udhagamandalam markets. They envisioned their ancient craft reclaiming its rightful place as fine art.

Together, they've grown the textile artist team to 70 women who stretch fabric with their fingers and count threads purely by touch. The women swap stories while creating labor-intensive pieces that honor their ancestors' techniques, using quality cotton thread instead of cheap acrylic substitutes.

The Ripple Effect

The Mumbai show represents more than beautiful textiles on gallery walls. It's transforming how Toda women see themselves, shifting from anonymous craftspeople to recognized artists whose work deserves signatures and fair compensation.

Beyond Hyderabad and the recent Kochi-Muziris Biennale showing, this exhibition features their largest artworks yet. Visitors will find gorgeous linen and khadi saris blockprinted with Nilgiri flora like kurinji and rhododendron, each piece telling stories of land, buffalo, and belonging.

Reddy juggles roles as businesswoman, designer, and social media photographer to keep the tradition thriving. Her Sony and Fuji cameras document every hamlet visit, creating critical records as ancient practices face modern pressures.

When Mutsin bequeathed Reddy a richly embroidered puthkuzhy cloak, she passed along more than fabric. She entrusted her with a dying art form's future, one precious stitch at a time.

Now these 400 women who actively practice their sacred embroidery are finally stepping out of the shadows, their initials proudly marking textiles destined for museums and collections worldwide.