Embroidery - Calangute, Goa
Goa is a state situated in West India, bounded by states Maharashtra in the north and Karnataka in the south, and Arabian Sea forming its western coast. The smallest state by area in India is Goa, Panaji is its capital and Vasco da Gama is the largest city. Goa is a splendid place one would want to visit! It attracts tourists from all over and has its national and international visitors come for beaches, the world class architecture and for the beauty of the place itself. Calangute is one of the prominent places of Goa and is very well-known for its beaches (queen of beaches) the largest in north Goa. It is visited by thousands of visitors every year. The visitors are less at off season (from June through September) and more during the times of Christmas, New Year and summer season that is in May. Calangute is the most commercialized of all beaches in Goa. Restaurants, pubs, antique junk, sea shells, clothing, craft items and more are found in and around Calangute beaches. One of the eye catchy shops there is the machine Embroidered T-shirts’ near Calangute beach. The T- shirts and bags hung outside with bright color threads used for Embroidery attracts tourists from far off the streets and have attractive designs on them.
Umesh Yadav from Varanasi, born and brought up in Kathmandu and later settled in Goa from couple of years owns two of these machine embroidery shops. One at Candolim and another in Calangute beach. The designs and combine of patterns are originally done and is said that his family were the first ones to start off this kind of machine embroidery in Goa. It was his father’s indication to work on this kind of embroidery and it was initiated in 1997. There is a lot of scope being in Goa for its volatile, keeps changing all the time and that is the advantage they have he says. Being creative, that it is a party hub and also a family destination they are trying to bring in designs where they can reach out to people and give them perhaps what they like and admire, what they would want to wear or see. That’s what the shops working for and doing well. The shop got good response when it was started initially, tourists appreciated and definitely machine embroidery was a successful lash his father perceived.
As days passed the innovation of designs and skills enhanced through exchange of ideas from customers. Machine work is quite faster and can acquire a good finishing of the embroidery work done. The threads used are got from Mumbai from wholesale markets. Lot of tourists from Israel, Germany and Denmark where fascinated and bought these products. Few products are said to be sent to Finland even. The designs are psychedelic, can be custom made to what the client wants or designs which are generally appealing to all are stitched. It takes approximately three hours to stitch a design on t-shirt. The smaller designs consume more time because of intricacy. The orders for a large quantity is fulfilled checking with the manpower and time.
