The village we cannot name

Everything here is meant to come with an address. Eight of the nine weaves do — a cluster, a district, usually a GI. Bengal tant does not, and it is the best summer cotton in the shop.

It came through an agent in Kolkata. He is a real person we have bought from for four years, and he buys from more than one weaving family across the Nadia belt. He could give us a village for a particular bolt. He could not give us one for all of them, and we are not going to pick the prettiest name and print it on a label.

West Bengal's registered cotton saris are Shantipuri and Dhaniakhali. This is neither, as far as we can prove. It is Bengal tant, which is a real and specific thing — just a broader one than we would like.

We keep it because it is the only cloth we have found that is genuinely comfortable in a Bengaluru June. And we keep the gap visible because the alternative is to start making things up on the pages where it is inconvenient to be honest.