New Delhi, March 2 -- She doesn't have a specific memory of seeing a gamchha for the first time, but former Samata Party president Jaya Jaitly remembers being greeted at political meetings in West Bengal and Odisha with the cotton cloth woven with checks and stripes. "These were beautiful, colourful gamchhas with bright plain bodies or bearing ikat patterns and narrow borders with little temple spikes," recalls Jaitly, now president of Dastkari Haat Samiti. "They were long-lasting, bright and would go with so many of my saris," she says, explaining that she turned them into blouses. The politician, activist, author and crafts curator also became a collector of the gamchha, picking them up from weavers and artisans from various parts of th...