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Book Review
A heritage in transition
CHITRAPU UDAY BHASKAR
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Some textile traditions that make up the warp and weft of the Indian experience
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Threads & Voices — Behind the Indian Textile Tradition: Edited by Laila Tyabji; Marg Publications, (National Centre for the Performing Arts), Army & Navy Building, 3rd Floor, 148, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Mumbai- 400001. Rs.2500.
Marg Publications has a distinctive reputation in nurturing Indian art scholarship that is also accessible to the layperson, and the current volume follows this commendable furrow with elegant panache. Laila Tyabji, the guest editor of this volume on the humble but hoary Indian textile, is well-equipped to string this book together. Founder Chairperson of Dastkar, a society for crafts and craftspeople established in 1981, Tyabji has been associated with the revival of the
craft tradition – particularly in the textile sector – and in this book, she seeks to “interpret the textile through the contemporary craftspeople that make it, including the voices of designers and craft NGOs who work with them.” And through a series of 11 essays and appropriate rich visuals – that are a Marg USP – Tyabji and her fellow authors succeed admirably in providing an empathetic, albeit brief, overview of some of the many textile traditions that make up the warp and weft of the Indian experience. But more than conveying the aesthetic nature inherent in each little tradition, this volume is different for the manner in which it recognises the relentless march of technology inherent in the impress of contemporary modernity, and the influence of globalisation and the market on traditional craft.
Individual traditions
The individual traditions covered include the “rabari”, “chikankari”, “chippa”, “bagh” and “phulkari”, “doria”, “kashmiri” and “lambani” embroidery, and “sujuni”, as also the transmutation in the lives of the master weavers of “bhujodi”. Tyabji provides the concluding stitch, as it were with her observations on embroidery as identity and empowerment for those engaged in this ancient craft practice. That the Indian textile tradition has many admirers and practitioners outside the country is borne out by the mix of authors. Judy Frater, an anthropologist who has specialised in the textile tradition of the Kachchh and who has written an authoritative volume on the subject (Threads of Identity) has contributed two essays in the nature of conversations with the local craftspeople, Lacchuben Raja and Pabiben Soma, and the Vishramji family. Here anthropology and textile practice are leavened together to give the reader an insight into how technology brought about a transformation in the lives of these stoic women of Kachchh.
First-person accounts
Paola Manfredi offers an endearing portrayal of the “chikankari” tradition that Lucknow is renowned for and asks a quizzical question as she ponders over the bundle of dirty whitish-grey cloth being given the inimitable touch by the local dhobi and the metamorphosis into a fine work of an age-old craft: “Is chikankari a metaphor of the human condition and its spiritual path?” SEWA, the well-known NGO, is the catalyst here and succeeds in breaking the stranglehold of the middlemen so that the women engaged in this tradition finally get their due. Meeta and Sunny have a delightful account of one family – Raghunath and Kalawati – and how they became the most prosperous “chippa” of Kaladera and it is such first-person accounts of the designer-activist, the artisan —their trials, tribulations and ultimate triumph— that is the dominant narrative strain.
Jasleen Dhamija, acclaimed writer on living cultural traditions in India, brings alive the “phulkari” of Punjab with infectious lyricism in as much as Urzamma and Annapurna record their perseverance in reviving the hand-woven cotton “doria” in Chinnur, Andhra Pradesh. Jenny Housego has one of the more evocative essays as she recounts her Kashmir story – her interaction with the magic of the local embroidery. Gender sensitivity, the scars of terrorist-related violence, the Sufi ethos and how embroidery becomes a form of meditation embellish her tale, and again, it is the shared experience of the entrepreneur, the socially committed but pragmatic activist that makes these vignettes very meaningful.
Individual mention of authors and the heroic craftspeople who dot this slim volume may not be possible but Tyabji has illuminated many of the contradictions and conundrums that envelop the textile domain in India. How is tradition to cope with the relentless onslaught of modernity? There are no quick answers but it is the rich texture of ordinary lives such as Puriben that exemplify the challenge ahead.
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