A silk worm doesn't always have to be boiled alive for you to be draped in a glistening silk saree. Ahimsa silk -an endeavour by Maneka Gandhi's NGO People for Animal, is the only silk in the world that does not kill for beauty.

Jigna Shah, a National Institute of Fashion Technology graduate, the only dealer of Ahimsa silk in India, says the textile is not a product but a concept that Reve, her designing house, and People for Animal are trying to promote.

Instead of putting the cocoons in boiling water with the worm still in them, this technique uses only those cocoons that have been naturally discarded by the worms.

However, this unique textile's reach has remained restricted to the environmentally- conscious elite and the international fashion houses, given that it is priced anywhere between Rs 650 and Rs 2,000 a metre, depending on the weave.

"We gradually want to turn Ahimsa silk into a product for mass consumption from the niche that it holds right now. To achieve this, we are developing less complex weaves and inventing newer fabrics with a combination of threads,"says Shah.

Ahimsa silk worms are developed in rural Orissa, Assam and Himachal Pradesh and woven in looms in Bihar. "The production is slow and tedious.

We produce only about 1,500 to 2,000 meters of the silk every month. The yarn length with these cocoons is much shorter than in the conventional method,"says Shah.

"However, it has a sheen that is rare in ordinary silk," she adds. Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil heard about Ahimsa silk at a Jain gathering and was fascinated by the idea. "I have been wearing Ahimsa silk ever since,"says Gohil.

Shirley Bhimani, a housewife, "loves the feel of Ahimsa silk." Shah has been supplying the textile to international chain of stores like Ogaan and DaStore.

"Ahimsa silk is also an alternative for people who don't wear silk for religious reasons, like Jains and Muslims", says Shah, a Jain herself. "We also have clients belonging to a specific meditation group in Philippines as well as followers of Iskcon,"says Shah.

The next destination is Tirupathi.