Cotton rag and thread
The paper is rag, not wood pulp. Cotton cuttings from mills near Kochi are beaten, sized with a little starch, and formed on a mould that leaves a deckle you can feel with a thumbnail. It takes ink without feathering and charcoal without smearing into the next page. We buy it in parent sheets and cut down to A5, A6, and a squat square that fits a shirt pocket.
Thread is linen, waxed at the bench. We do not use plastic-coated floss. Needles are the blunt kind bookbinders like, and the jig is a scrap of teak with holes drilled on a rainy Tuesday. Glue is wheat paste for most spines; PVA only when a client insists on a hard cover that will travel in a backpack through Palakkad in April.
If you want a book, tell us the size, whether it should lie flat, and whether the cover should be cloth, skin, or something you bring yourself — a leftover sari, a map of the backwaters, a letter you are ready to hide. We answer when the rollers of the little press are clean.