In 19991 her world came tumbling down when the then 16-year-old Neelima Lal was diagnosed with Hodgin’s lymphoma. She was in Class XII, undergoing chemotherapy and couldn’t attend college. Nothing could be more devastating than that, right? Not for Neelima. “I did my first amateur exhibition of clothes then,” she says. Not one to indulge in self-pity, the brave teenager was determined to graduate in maths statistics and computers. And she did.
Along the way Neelima realised that her hobby had become her passion and that’s when she plunged into a career in textiles and fashion. And just when you assumed her life was back on track, destiny played a cruel trick on her, “While I was applying for a diploma course in fashion design in a college in LA, in 1996, I had my first relapse of the same disease,” she recollects.
But being the determined young lady that she was, Neelima decided to continue with her exhibitions and joined Nift in 1998. Like she says, “My plans were shattered, not my dreams. At Nift, I met Dr P. L. Panda, the then director of Nift, Hyderabad, and he introduced me to the world of traditional textiles of India. I went on to train at Weavers Service Centre, Hyderabad, in weaving and printing, and did various projects for the commissioner of textiles AP,” she adds.
In keeping with her never-say-die spirit, Neelima had realised that it was time to blend the old with the new and thus Aakarr was born in 1998. “It symbolises art and the work is associated with a cause. While I was training at the Weavers Service Centre Hyderabad, I met a master weaver, Narsimhlu sir, who went on to become my mentor.
Under his guidance and support we created a huge range of handloom fabrics every season and I conducted exhibitions in various cities. I had also developed my studio and a block printing unit at my residence. I had also started customising clothes and had a workshop for tailoring and embroideries. It was a huge challenge to convince the customers to wear handcrafted fabrics and yet look very fashionable.
My biggest challenge was when I got married and shifted to Bengaluru in 2005. But I decided that a lot of people’s livelihood depended on Aakarr so I worked with them from here,” says Neelima.
This 41-year-old straddles many worlds. Another project close to her heart is Karghaa. She takes us back to the time when the handloom weaver-empowered model was initiated by Oxfam in 2007 as a solution to the ongoing handloom crisis. “Through this model the role of intermediaries’ middlemen has been minimised to maximise the gains to handloom weavers. This was achieved by organising and capacity building of the small handloom ikat weavers in 17 villages of Nalgonda district, Telangana state.
I was contacted by the project head of Oxfam to join their project as a design consultant. And along with my project head, we have identified talented weavers and trained them in quality control through various trainings in dyeing, adapting to modern techniques and designs without hampering the age old art forms and marketing,” adds Neelima.
She along with Karghaa’s CEO, Sudha Rani, is working in clusters like Rajouli to revive the age old Gadwal and telia rumaal saris while trying to promote ikat in vegetable dyes.
It looked like fate liked playing cat and mouse with Neelima. She had a relapse after 17 years in 2014. “Yoga and meditation are my lifeline and I’ve been able to go through the various daily chores in spite of being treated by chemotherapy three times is only because I practise this every day. I am where I am because of my family, comprising parents, siblings and my husband. They have stood by me like a rock during the darkest of hours and have encouraged me in all my endeavours. God has been kind and I am blessed to have a family like this,” she asserts.
