India is already starting to blur at the edges in my mind, and I still have so much to write about! We haven’t even reached the best part yet… I’m determined to write it all down before it turns into a hazy, rose-tinted memory.
After two nights in Ahmedabad, we set off on the very long drive to Bhuj. On the way, we stopped in Patan, once the medieval capital of Gujarat, to visit the extraordinary UNESCO World Heritage Site, Rani ki Vav - a stepwell featured on the Indian 100-rupee note. A step well is exactly as it sounds... magnificent steps leading to a well, so everything you can see in the photos is actually below ground.
Rani ki Vav is a magnificent 11th-century stepwell and is a vast, seven-level structure, covered in hundreds of intricate carvings - mainly depictions of Hindu deities.
For centuries, the stepwell lay buried under layers of silt and mud after repeated flooding from the nearby Saraswati River. It was eventually rediscovered in the late 19th century, but major excavation didn’t begin until the 1940s, with further restoration in the 1980s. As the silt was carefully removed, the carvings emerged astonishingly well preserved.
We arrived in Bhuj that evening slightly frazzled from the long journey. As I suffer from car sickness, I was allocated the front seat next to the driver. Watching Indian driving up close is a rather hair-raising occupation. Our driver spent the full 5 hours with his hand pressed permanently on the horn. Cows wandered freely along the motorway, and at one point I saw a family doing maintenance work on the central reservation, with a baby and toddler crawling around perilously close to the fast lane. I don’t think health and safety is much of a thing in India!
The next morning we visited Ajrakhpur, where Muslim and Hindu communities work side by side to preserve the art of resist block printing. We met artisan Sufiyan Khatri, who introduced us to the complex process of Ajrakh printing. “Ajrakh”, which means ‘here today’ is the name of the deep crimson and indigo cloth traditionally produced in this area. The process is long and intricate, involving multiple stages of hand printing and repeated washing with dyes and mordants; harda, lime, indigo, even camel dung are among the many natural ingredients.
Left; Sufiyan explains the process. Right; samples of cloth showing the array of colours that over-dyeing can achieve.
Left; dye baths. Right; some of the natural ingredients used by Sufiyan to create his pigments and dyes.
Sufiyan showed us how he carefully registers each wooden block so the patterns line up perfectly. The most impressive part was when he turned the fabric over and somehow aligned the entire design again on the reverse!
Left; just a few of the thousands of wooden blocks that were littered everywhere.
Right; Sufiyan's perfect demonstration of block printing.
Of course, we all wanted to have a go, and once again it was much harder than it looked. After printing our samples, we left our “masterpieces” drying in the sun and wandered around watching the block printing masters at work, and the lengths of patterned fabric billowing in the breeze.
Left; I was intrigued to see the backing cloths washed and drying on the roof. Layers of patterns built up over time, much like ours, but in beautiful indigo shades.
Right; Freshly printed cloth drying in the sun.
Needless to say, we then went slightly mad in Sufiyan’s shop, buying armfuls of fabrics and clothing.
Our next stop was an unforgettable home-cooked lunch at the house of textile collector Salim Wazir. Over a delicious meal, we chatted with him and his family. I was particularly delighted to meet his large collection of Bengali cats and kittens, as I am sure you can imagine! Stray dogs are everywhere, but these are the first cats I met in India and I needed my cat fix!
Salim is the custodian of an extraordinary private collection of antique textiles, amassed over decades by himself and his late father. The collection - arguably one of the finest in India - was first started in 1965 in Kutch, but soon expanded to include pieces from across the country and the Sindh region of Pakistan (pre-Partition). Originally, his father bought and sold textiles, but he quickly realised the importance of preserving them. His solution was to always buy two - one to sell, and one to keep.
We were incredibly fortunate to be given unique insights by Salim about some of the pieces in his vast archive. We learnt about the role of embroidery in this region, and the ancestral heritage woven into the communities we would soon go on to meet.
Left; many of the pieces are in the form of panels on garments such as this one. Salim is against these garments being re-purposed into cushions or bags, as he rightly believes they are cultural references which need to be preserved.
Right; Synthetic dyes were introduced 90 years ago and brought vivid colours which became very popular.
Left; Intricate Kantha stitched piece from Bengal. Right; applique which is a style developed by Jains.
Left; Salim had a few very rare pieces from colonial days, which featured patchworked strips with fabric printed in Manchester. At the time this was considered a status symbol!
Right; unfortunately a rather poor photograph of my favourite piece in his whole collection. This is a Bandhani technique where tiny stitches are sewn into the silk, and then the whole piece is dyed and over dyed, creating intricate patterns.
We then had a rare opportunity to buy some of his collection. Making a selection was an almost impossible task, but I ended up selecting this gem, which would have been used to cover a stack of quilts in a home. It is around 65 years old from Eastern Kutch and was embroidered by the Ahir community. I am thrilled with it, and now regret not buying more! I am planning to put it above my sofa in my sitting room.
