I found it remarkable that such an ancient traditional material could have such a surprising, technological future,” Aarathi Prasad tells mid-day. The London-based writer, broadcaster and researcher says that she understood that the history of silk was a more global, and nuanced story than most realise. “And that the domesticated silk moth was by no means the only animal whose silk people wove into fabrics.” Prasad’s new book, Silk: A History in Three Metamorphoses (HarperCollins India) is a cultural and biological account spanning continents and millenia, combining global and natural histories of silk production with more human records of scientists and explorers, as well as a study that goes beyond the Chinese silkworm Bombyx mori to trace stories of ‘other’ silks from other moths such as muga and tasar from India as well as sea silk from mollusks and spider silk. As she explains in her Introduction, “…there is not just one silk, there is not just one story of silk.”

Placing silkworms in the spinning trays and removing the cocoons; Drying cocoons in the sun; Unwinding the cocoons; Testing, sorting and packing silk