India Textile Tour---Day 7

Our sitting (swing) room

Bedroom

Flew from Jaipur, Rajasthan to Ahmedabad, Gujarat first thing in the morning. We are staying in a hotel called House of MG (Mangaldas Girdhardas), which is a mansion built in 1924 by a textile manufacturer that has been converted to a 34 room hotel. Huge place, I can only imagine the number of servants required to run it as a residence. Anyway, a wonderful room with a swing in the sitting room.

Entrance to well

Looking down, can you

imagine hauling water up?

After lunch we went on a bus tour of the city. Stopping at the Dada Heri Step Well, we took a look down the five stories of steps to the water at the bottom. Built in 1485 by the lady supervisor of the royal harem, the well is made of sandstone with elaborate galleries and passages on the many levels.

Shreyas Folk Museum, from the internet

We then went to the Shreyas Folk Museum, which exhibits all types of crafts made by Gujarati women. Unfortunately, again, no photos allowed, but I'll see what I can find on the internet

On the way home we stopped at the Sidi Saiyad Mosque to see the wonderfully carved windows that are on the back of the structure. The mosque was built in 1573 and is just across the street from the House of MG, but crossing the street is impossible.

Doesn't sound like we did much, but Ahmendabad was in the midst of a heat wave, and the temperature was 99 degrees this afternoon!

 

One of the windows of the Sidi Saiyad Mosque

Detail

At the Folk Museum

Yes, Virginia, there are peacocks in India

India Textile Tour---Day 6

Starting a piece, drying overhead

Feeling more like I'll live today. After breakfast we set off out of town to Bagru. This is the site of the Texcraft Park, were Jaipur Bloc members are reducing the environmental impact of textile production by creating a truly eco-friendly industrial site. Rain water is collected, solar power used for cleansing the water, and all waste water collected and cleaned of industrial discharge. The site houses many different companies and we visited two that do block prints as well as dyeing, especially indigo.

Five blocks to make the design

I will never look at block printing in quite the same way again. There is so much labor involved in a piece, depending on how many times the fabric is stamped. The minimum number of different blocks used is about three, but we saw one set that had seven blocks, which means that each area on the fabric was stamped seven times to produce the proper pattern and colors.

 

All environmentally safe dyes

The indigo pot--9 feet deep

Beautiful indigo

Dyeing the old fashioned way

After lunch we went to the Village Bagru to observe how things were done traditionally. We did not see any block printing, but we did see indigo dyeing. Seems to be done largely by women. No gloves were worn, so the ladies had very blue hands. The resist used is usually mud or mud/sawdust, and the fabric is just laid on the dirt to dry before being reimmersed in the dye pot or washed.

Laying out the indigo to dry

Final results, a wholesalers shop

One of the designs, the resist is mud

An amazingly complex block all handmade

India Textile Tour---Day 5

Work up feverish and coughing, and at breakfast decided not to go out for the day the the Amer Fort and Anokhi Museum. Instead stayed at the hotel all day and had the doctor who makes “hotel calls” visit me. He said “Upper respiratory infection,” and gave me antibiotics and fever reducers. Total bill came to Rs 2000. This is about $30 and included the medicine! What a deal.

Detail Akbar's Tomb

Dining at Shahpura House

Some unpublished images of India

Waiting to cross the road, the traffic doesn't stop

Detail Shahpura House

For my next quilt, Taj Mahal detail

Detail Akbar's Tomb

India Textile Tour--Day 4

IndiGo barf bag

Once again, up early, this time to catch a plane to Jaipur. We took IndiGo, which reminds me of Southwest with their tongue in cheek attitude. Rajastan seems a little less polluted than Delhi, where I have developed a nasty cough.

Shahpura House wall art

Our hotel, the Shahpura House, is wonderful, a niche hotel of the best kind. Originally a manor house of the Shekhawal clan of Rajputs, it was turned into a hotel by Maharaj Surendra Singh ji in the 1990's. Decoration everywhere and Indian style beds, cool marble floors and a/c. What more could you want in a hotel.

Bedroom

Palace of the Winds, a facade

Jaipur Juntar Muntar, the largest

After checking in and lunch in a wonderful dining room, we went on a city tour. The old walled city is most interesting but it is only a small part of Jaipur, which is huge, having a population of 6.66 million. Know as the pink city, it is the capital of Rajasthan, and the walled city is a World Heritage site. It really is painted a browny-pink, especially inside the city wall. Driving around we saw the Hawa Mahal, or Palace of the Winds, the Lake Palace which was featured in “Octopussy,” with Amer Fort overlooking it all. We then stopped at the Jantar Mantar, an observatory completed between 1724 and 1735. There are five Jantar Mantar's in India, and the one in Jaipur is the largest. It is extremely accurate, especially considering the time period in which it was conceived and constructed. Local time, for instance, is calculated to within two seconds.

Peacock door in City Palace

Closeup of the peacocks

After the Jantar Mantar we went to the City Palace, part museum, part private living quarters for the Maharajah of Jaipur. We walked through myraid courtyards, through private and not-so-private audience chambers and through gates, but only touched on a small portion of the palace as most of it is still the private dwelling of the Maharajah. Wonderfully displayed textiles, but no photos were allowed.

One of the gates into old Jaipur

India Textile Tour Day 3

Magnificent

Front entrance, Akbar the Great tomb

Waiting for the train

Waiting for work

Up really early, and on the bus by 5:00 to catch the train to Agra. Trip through city streets already waking up to the train station. Indian train stations are a whole story unto themselves. Noisy, crowded and smelly. (Indian men will urinate ANYWHERE.) Caught the train with no problem and off to Agra.

Akbar the Great's tomb

Bus was waiting and we got our garlands and off to Sikandra, a suburb of Agra, where we visited Akbar the Great's Tomb. This was built from 1605-1613, although Akbar had planned and started the tomb in 1600. Lots of marble mixed with red sandstone in about a 20 acre piece of ground. Long walks in the hot sun, but at least the humidity wasn't too bad.

All at once, there it is

After visiting the tomb we went to lunch in Agra, then on to the Taj Mahal. I was very surprised by the area around the Taj. When I visited in 1977 the road outside was a typical, chaotic, Indian road. This has all been removed, and you park and are driven up to the entrance in an electric vehicle. This is to reduce the pollution that was destroying the marble of the monument. Through security, then everything is as it was earlier. The Taj is wonderfully white. Mud packs were used to remove the staining of pollution. In my pictures you will see scaffolding around the corner minarets where this process is on-going.

Masses of people, as Monday was a holiday for some religious festival, with myriads of foreign tourists, of which I was one. Hot and humid, with thunderstorms in the distance. I sat and admired the

Entrance to the Agra Fort

scene: the Taj does not disappoint.

Off to the Agra Fort, about a mile away from the Taj. By this time I was really tired, and elected to stay in the bus since I had seen the Fort before. Ninety-four acres, really, a walled city, was more than I could take at this time.

Back to the train station, then bussed to the hotel---wow, I'm tired.

Balbir, our tour guide

 

I see this in a quilt, from the Taj entrance

India Textile Tour Day 2

The textile museum was part of the Craft Museum of India. Lots and lots of textiles, including extremely fine Kashmir shawls with weaving so tiny you could hardly make it out, as well as applique and kanta cloth. Problem with both presentation and lighting. There were no labels, so you weren't too sure what you were looking at, other than having a general idea, but, worse than that, the lighting, what there was of it, stunk. That said, it was interesting looking at all the different types of textiles made in India.

We had a very nice lunch at the cafe associate with the museum, the Cafe Lota. It served a “pan Indian” menu and seemed very popular with the locals. I had a lovely kachcha aam prawns curry.

Waiting to cross the road, the cars don't stop

After crossing the road (an adventure in itself) we went to the Dilli Haat, which is mainly a handcraft market. Spent an hour and half there. Since it was Jammu/Kashmir month, we saw a lot of pashima shawls and scarves.

Dinner was at the hotel where we're staying, the Metropolitan. Again, way too much to eat, mostly tandoori style...wonderful kulfi for dessert.

Pulkari, raw silk totally covering foundation fabric

Applique, tree of life

Appetizer, including fried spinach leaves, yum.

Flame of the Forest

Up early tomorrow for a train ride to Agra.

Indian traffic at its finest

Reverse applique from Bengal