A laborious craft with hand block printing done on both sides of the fabric, the name ajrakh has many stories. Be it a king’s wish to keep his bedspread for one more day (‘aaj ke din rakh’) or finding its etymology in Sanskrit (A-jharat) and Arabic (Azrak), Ajrakh finds its roots in present day Sindh.

Tangaliya is a 700 year old handwoven craft from the Saurashtra region of Surendernagar, Gujarat. It is a distinguished weaving teachnique which follows the traditional methods carried by generations. Origin of Tangaliya can be traced back to 14th century when a man from Bharwad community fell in love with a girl from Vankar caste. Despite the opposition from both sides, they got married. So, the families asked the couple to leave the village. The village elders gave them a wooden stick and decided that they will weave products and sell them to the Bharwad community to earn a living. In the local dialect, dang means wooden and sia means to go and so their children were called Dangasia. The couple settled outside the border of the two villages where their children began the exquisite technique of dana weaving.

Lippan means mud washing and Kaam means work in the Gujarati language. Lippan work started as a way to decorate walls of bhunga (mud house) in Kutch, Gujarat. The aesthetics were way different than what they are today. Motifs and designs were made in thick bold lines of clay.

It is said that Bagru and Dabu hand block printing began around 450 years ago in a small village in Rajasthan. When the Chippa community travelled from Sawai Madhopur, Alwar and settled in Bagru, they started pacticing this craft. The place began to be called as Chippa Mohalla where Chippa translates to ‘to print’ in Gujarati and ‘to dye and leave in sun’ in Nepali. Their proximity to a water body (Sanjaria riverside) led to ease in access of clay which is one of the main raw materials required for this art.   

Madhubani art originated in Mithila region in North Bihar. Dated back to the times of Ramayana, Madhubani paintings came into being when Raja Janak asked the women of his kingdom to decorate their houses for his daughter Sita’s wedding to Lord Rama. The women painted pictures pertaining to the themes of fertility, celebration of nature and gods. It is believed that this tradition continued and murals were drawn on clay walls of village homes.

It is said that weaving is practiced in Himachal Pradesh for around 5000 years. Till the 1830s, decorations to Kullu weaving was restricted to variations in twill weave, checks, and plaids and were devoid of motifs. But, when the weavers of Rupa village in Kinnaur faced persecution by the local king, things changed. They fled to Kullu and introduced their style of weaving to Kulluvi artisans. This led to the development of extra weft motifs in Kullu weaving. Intricate Kinnauri motifs were enlarged and simplified over time to form the bright bold patterns for which Kullu became famous. In this way, Kinnauri weaving is the predecessor of Kulluvi weaving.

In the 15th century, the women of Punjab started practicing Phulkari embroidery. Phul means flower and kari means flower. This textile art is a celebration of womanhood. A woman is a creator of next generations, thus to mark the auspicious occasion of birth of a girl child, her mother or grandmother starts embroidering a Phulkari. The textile is made as per the characters of the woman, grows along with her over the years and is gifted during her wedding.

Chikankari is a traditional and elegant embroidery style from Lucknow, India. Whether it was discovered in the 3rd century BC by Megasthenes or in the 17th century during the Mughal era by Noor Jahan, Chikankari solely represents Awadhi culture. After the demise of Nur Jahan, the King of Awadh, Nasir-ud-Din Haidar revived the craft in the 1830s by offering chikankari products as expensive gifts to the Britishers and displaying them at darbaars. The cave paintings at Bagh and Ajanta share a number of motifs, patterns, and compositions with this craft.

In the Indian subcontinent, khes is a thin cotton blanket
used as winter wraps. It was during the Mughal era that it evolved as a cotton blanket. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the Punjab region of undivided India has historically been recognised for producing Khes and a variety of coarse cotton textiles by hand. A single khes can have multiple end uses like floor covering, bed covering, blanket, shawl, etc.

Khesh weaving originated in Birbhum, West Bengal. It is a sustainable practice where old saree scraps or discraded sarees are used create woven products. According to Birbhum’s traditional weavers who learned the craft from their fathers, Khesh was first practiced in Shilpa Sadan in the early 1920s. Rabindranath Tagore established this vocational training facility at Sriniketan to empower women and give a market to the local community.