Navarti knits with the hands that once dressed a bear.
Her husband was a Kalandar, one of those men in India who made bears dance for a few coins, until the practice was banned and the family trade suddenly disappeared. She needed work. She found something better: a purpose.
In Mathura, on the banks of the Yamuna River, the Wildlife SOS Elephant Conservation and Care Centre houses around 20 elephants rescued from circuses and temples, animals whose legs bear the marks of years of chains and beatings. Many suffer from arthritis and joint pain that the cold of Uttar Pradesh, which can drop as low as 5 or 6 degrees, makes unbearable. Then Kamini Chander, a consultant for the NGO, had an idea: to call on women like Navarti to knit custom-made sweaters for them.
Each garment weighs about 4 kilos of wool and requires up to a month of work by several knitters, six or seven hands sewing what will cover the belly, neck, back, and legs of an animal that never asked to be born in captivity. The result is colorful giants, kept warm by women who one day found themselves without a trade and now sustain, thread by thread, the health of those who need it most.
