New Delhi, March 27 -- The sound is like a heartbeat; the rhythmic click-clack of looms seemingly without beginning or end, much like the flowing Narmada nearby. I am standing under an ancient neem tree in the courtyard of the Rehwa Society, thinking back to the women who have brought me here. My mother and aunts all wore Maheshwari saris in tropical Chennai as did I, and though I didn't know it then, the history of this weave, unlike many others in India, is linked to women.

It began with Queen Ahilyabai Holkar who made Maheshwar (in present-day Madhya Pradesh) the capital of her Malwa kingdom in 1767. She invited weavers from Surat, Mandu and Hyderabad to create special weaves for her, taking inspiration from the stone sculptures of he...