Magic Of Thread In Ooty (Udhagamandalam) ,India

Today while talking to my friend Savitri, who is from Kerala I suddenly I remembered that the creator of the unbelievable Thread Garden of Ooty(Udhagamandalam),India is a Keralite. I shared with her my experiences and will share with you too about this wonder work. It was during our visit to Ooty we discovered this phenomenon.

OOTY-a cool summer retreat nestling in the depths of the Blue Mountains-the Nilgiris is also the home of exotic and ornamental plants. But for those not impressed with the real thing, there is a garden made entirely of thread and it will not be wrong to regard it as the eighth wonder of the world. Thread Garden is situated in an exhibition form right in front of the famed Ooty Lake. From outside, it was no more than a tarpaulin tent of the sort, which small time magicians put up at popular resorts. It’s about 70 meter in length and 10 meter in breadth. "Pay Rs10 and see a thread garden”, a gaudy poster proclaimed.

Since we had an hour in our hands, we decided to try our luck at the Thread Garden. The tent had nothing except about 150 potted plants, of the kind one sees at every nursery. Some of them had flowers while the others were yet to blossom. Jeet, my husband had a close look at the pots and shouted in disbelief, "Oh my God, these are not genuine!” And only then did the sheer grandeur of that incredible work of art struck us. We were surrounded by unbelievably real looking models of plants and flowers, creepers, climbers, lawns and lotus ponds. The ambience was natural enough for even the sharpest eye to be mistaken. They were all before our eyes and yet it was hard to believe that these were not God's creations, because there was difference even in shade of the colour of the leaves depending on whether they were freshly grown or a few days old. Not only that, every single vein of the leaves was clearly visible.

We were curious to know more about it. We talked to one of the organizers and seeing our enthusiasm he requested us to wait as he went to call the creator. We saw a simply dressed, slightly built, bearded man walking towards us. He introduced himself as Anthony Joseph from Trichur, Kerala. His passion for his creation was obvious as he happily explained to us and cleared our doubts. He explained patiently that none of the plants was machine made. In fact, not even a needle had been used while creating them. That is why the aesthetic masterpiece had taken 50 specially trained artistes and more than 12 years to complete. One could only marvel at the concentration, patience and craftsmanship of these unlettered artisans when one noticed the perfection that helped them avoid any overlapping of knots or gaps. The skillful effects were so elaborate indeed that no computerized machine could ever hope to duplicate them.

He told us that all flower petals and stems were fully wound with thread using shaped stiff canvas base inside for flowers and leaves and steel or copper wires for stem under hand winding. The artistes rotate the fingers holding the thread in a certain position and speed it around the canvas base, to bring out the machine like perfection. Thread filaments are used as buds. He calls his technique "Four Dimensional Handwound Embroidery". Through many scientific and artistic observations and experiments, this method without using needles or machinery was invented.

When we asked him of his decision of setting the garden in Ooty and not in his home state, he told us that he regarded Ooty to be the perfect place to show his creation to the world as it attracts thousands of tourist, both national and international. The move paid off, with several thousand visitors seeing the exhibition ever since it was set up in December 2001. He approached the government but as its regulations do not permit creation of permanent structure near the Ooty Lake. So with permission he erected a temporary structure. Special care has been taken to free the artificial plant nursery from dust and moisture and preserve its colour and texture. He has planned to open more such gardens in different metropolitan cities. The whole effort was supported by Madura Coats, the thread major (where his father worked as a manager), which provided all the threads for the garden. It was a nice experience watching the garden and talking to Antony. He is one of those people, who live their dreams and work relentlessly towards attaining them.