Billing for your cloth and garment shop in Jharkhand
The sari by the piece, the dress cloth by the metre and the part payment, all on one bill.
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A one-colour rush, a sari with no twin and a village that buys dance cloth together
A season turns on one colour, and then the shelf is left with the rest
For a few weeks everyone wants the same thing: saffron lengths, or white cloth with a red border for the dance. That colour empties, the rest piles up, and when the rush ends you have no figure for how much of it you really sold, only a feeling.
A hand-woven tussar sari has no twin
Tussar saris differ in weave, in colour and in price, and you sell them one at a time. The price lives on a paper tag tied with a thread, and the tag falls off in handling. The next customer is quoted the price you remember, which is not always the price you set.
A village buys its dance cloth together
Before the dance season, one person may come for the whole group and take the same cloth for every dancer, many metres in one visit. The group pays at the next haat, on that one person's word, and the dress cloth leaves your shelf without a line that says whose it was.
The rush counted from the bills, one bill for the dancers' cloth, sizes before the dance season
The leftover of a rush is counted from the bills, not found on the shelf
After Sarhul and Karma, open the rush week's bills and see which colour of cloth is left folded. When the next dance season's order is written, that colour is cut from it and the colour that went is made larger.
The same cloth for every dancer, counted once
Every dancer wears the same cloth, so count it once, in metres, as one order in the name of the person carrying it home. The amount waits on his page until the haat, when he pays it, and no dancer is told a different rate from the next.
The dance cloth's metres known the evening before the village asks
Before Sarhul and Karma, the dance cloth is sold in metres, colour by colour. Keep each colour as an item counted in metres, and the roll that is left is known the evening before a village asks for it, not found out in front of the village.
What a Jharkhand cloth shop keeps beside the folded saris
Low stock warnings
A warning when the red-bordered white cloth or the saffron length is running short in metres, in the week before the dance or the pilgrim season wants it.
Bills on your phone
A tussar sari sold singly, with its own rate written on the bill by name, so the price said at the counter is the price she sees on her phone.
Daily reports
The days of a rush week set beside the days after it, so the leftover of a one-colour season shows in the sales and not as a surprise on the shelf.
Your own online shop
A page with the tussar saris you hold, each with its colour and rate, ready to share with a buyer who lives far from Ranchi.
Ranchi, Jamshedpur and the Giridih road: who walks into a cloth shop
Cloth sells differently in each part of Jharkhand, depending on who walks in and what they earn.
- Ranchi, the state capital, is an important centre of trade and commerce in Jharkhand; nearby forests supply furniture, match box and paper industries.
- In Jamshedpur most people work in industrial units: Tata companies, iron and steel, automobile and cement.
- Giridih is known as a place of ruby mica and a coal field, and the Grand Trunk Road passes through it.
An artisan trust in Maharashtra that moved its shop onto the phone
Questions Jharkhand cloth sellers ask about metres, pieces and part payments
A buyer asks whether the sari is the Jharkhand tussar. What can I show her?
Write what you know in the item's name: tussar, the colour and the weaver's village if you know it. The bill carries those words. The phone does not certify the cloth, and the words you wrote are what she holds.
The person who takes the dance cloth wants a bill to show the other dancers. Can he get one?
Yes. Make the bill with the cloth, the metres and the rate, and send it on WhatsApp to his phone. He can show it to the group, and your copy stays with your sales.
Can I find the customer who bought a tussar sari from me last year?
Yes, if you wrote enough. Name her page with her name and village, and the sari with its weave and colour. A search then brings up her page, with the bill and its date.
The saffron cloth comes from one wholesaler and the white from another. Can I keep their orders apart?
Yes. Each wholesaler has a page of his own. An order sent to him and the note of what arrived are kept on that page, so you can tell which wholesaler sent which cloth.
Tussar's GI tag and the saffron cloth of Sawan
"Tussar Silk Sarees & Fabrics of Jharkhand" is a registered Geographical Indication, applied for by Jharcraft, the state silk and handicraft corporation, on 27 May 2024. A cloth seller who stocks tussar can now point to a name that belongs to the state's silk.
Before Sawan 2026 (from 30 July), Ranchi markets saw heavy demand for saffron clothes worn by kanwariyas walking to Deoghar. A season like that fills a shelf with one colour and one size for a few weeks, and then the shelf is left with the rest.