Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
A Banarasi sari is slow to make and quick to copy. On a handloom in Varanasi, a heavy brocade piece can occupy a weaver for several weeks, and the skill is usually passed down within a family. Into the silk goes zari, a thread once wrapped in real gold or silver. The motifs seem to sit on the cloth rather than inside it.
A powerloom can produce something that looks much the same in a fraction of the time, and cheaper imitations are now sold everywhere. At a shop counter the difference is far from obvious. This, more than the machine itself, is the weaver’s problem. When the old patronage of courts and wealthy families faded, the craft came to depend on strangers who could not tell what they were paying for.
In 2009 Banarasi saris and brocades received a Geographical Indication (GI) tag, which limits the name to goods made in the region. The step was necessary, but its reach is tenuous: a name is easy to borrow and hard to police, and a certificate does little at a crowded counter.
What has helped more is visibility. Designers have carried the weave into contemporary clothes and named the people who made it. Some weavers now sell directly online, with short videos of the loom at work, so that the weeks of labour are seen rather than merely claimed. A buyer who has watched a sari take shape over a fortnight is less inclined to bargain it down to the price of a copy. National Handloom Day, marked every 7 August, gives the effort a yearly push. The looms are still slow, and in many weaving families the young are still weighing other work.
It can be inferred from the passage that, once the craft came to depend on strangers, weavers found it harder to:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → get a price that matched the weeks of work in each sari
The passage links strangers as buyers with a problem of price.
- The strangers “could not tell what they were paying for”. A handloom sari and a cheaper copy looked much the same to them.
- A buyer who cannot see the difference will not pay much more for the handmade one. So the weaver’s weeks of work were hard to get paid for. The last paragraph supports this: a buyer who has seen the labour is less likely to bargain the price down.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: keep making saris in the heavy brocade style that courts liked — Incorrect. Contradicted: The passage says a heavy brocade piece still takes a weaver several weeks. Such saris are still being made.
Option 3: find shops that were willing to stock handloom saris — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The passage talks about buyers at the counter, not about shops refusing to keep handloom saris.
Option 4: use the Banarasi name for saris woven in Varanasi — Incorrect. Contradicted: The GI tag keeps the name for goods made in the region. Weavers in Varanasi are the ones allowed to use it.