HYDERABAD: Weaving the Tricolour as one fabric without a single stitch or attachment was the dream of R Satyanarayana, a handloom weaver from a village in Andhra Pradesh. And when he needed Rs 6.5 lakh to realise his dream, he sold off his modest dwelling in Vemavaram village in West Godavari and shifted to a rented shack.The 8ft x 12ft national flag with the Ashoka Chakra that he finally wove is a one-of-a-kind experiment. He claims there are no such flags available in the country as the saffron, white and green khadi bands are generally stitched together. Satyanarayana, who has studied up to class VII, has now taken his dream a step further – he wants his Tricolour hoisted atop the Red Fort.The village weaver also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and handed over the flag to him when he visited Visakhapatnam recently. “I don’t know if Modi saw how unique the flag is,” Satayanarayana told TOI. He did not get a chance to explain the unique aspects of the flag.Satyanarayana said that he did not realise that the weaving would be a costly affair. “When I first began, I thought I would need only Rs 25,000,” he said.Initially, he made a 4ft x 6ft flag completely woven without a stitch. “But I later learnt from the internet that the size should be 8ft x 12ft for it to be hoisted atop the Red Fort,” he said.To meet the costs involved, he sold his ancestral house and spent the Rs 6.5 lakh on weaving the flag, which took him close to four years.Asked about what made him create the flag, he said he had watched a short film titled “Little Indians” where the actor stitched the three colours together and also coloured the Ashoka Chakra on the flag. “I then decided to weave the flag without it having to be stitched and also weave the coloured threads to make the Ashoka Chakra,” he said.He, however, was not able to foresee the difficulties he would face. And there were plenty. “But I surmounted them all,” Satyanarayana said proudly.The difficulties included weaving a perfect circle for the Ashoka Chakra. The pieces got disturbed and bundles of thread got wasted. But after spending Rs 6.5 lakh, not just one but two flags are ready.Satyanarayana normally designs sarees and takes help from 60 weaver families in his area. On one occasion, Rs 15 lakh worth sarees were destroyed when they fell in a nala during transportation. It was a huge loss in the midst of weaving the flag. But two good Samaritans saw his passion and gave him money.To realise the mission, Satyanarayana had to specially design and build a handloom weaving machine. The standard size of the machine is 4 feet but he had to get a 10 feet maggam (handloom weaving machine) made. “All the parts were made specially for my mission,” he said.Satyanarayana knows that flags made in Hubli in Karnataka are the ones officially hoisted at the Red Fort. “I have demonstrated my art of making a perfect flag. I can weave a one-piece flag if the authorities provide me with the right colour threads,” he said.