Travelling into the interiors of Madhya Pradesh once, I found myself in one of the most charming towns by the Narmada — Maheshwar. The mighty river was in spate and had submerged many of the ghats, a few smaller temples on the banks and was lapping dangerously on the steps of the main temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. The black granite shrine juxtaposed against the swirling golden waters of the river with the gray of the water-laden clouds formed an amazing contrast. But what was even more stunning was the sheer plethora of colour combinations in the sarees peculiar to the town — the redoubtable Maheshwari saree.
One weaver in particular had acquired quite a reputation for coming up with unusual combinations. A blue-blooded saree lover that I am, I tracked him down and asked him how he had conjured up the colours. He said humbly, “When I was young, my father, who was also a weaver, used to send me to the fields everyday and tell me to observe the butterflies and recreate the colours on their wings in the sarees. Till date, I only do that.” I was floored by the man’s poetic insight and sensitivity.
Traditional poetry in India likens life itself to cloth on a loom. It is no surprise then that textiles have had such an intrinsic and perhaps intimate relationship within the Indian culture, spirituality and economy. The fact that Indian textiles have captured the imagination of art historians and connoisseurs alike, and generate tremendous interest, is amply evident in the fact that a large number of publications on the subject continue to originate from all over the world.
While some styles and weaving techniques have disappeared over the years, others have seen resurgence with renewed vigour in the last few years, where tradition has taken the step forward to explore newer vistas.
The amazing dexterity and mind boggling range of textiles that form a part of the sub-continent’s great cultural heritage even finds mention in some of the ancient texts and music bandishs or compositions. The fact that a whole stream of music was developed in parts of India to help the young weavers to learn by shruti (listening) and smriti (remembering), complicated patterns by heart to ensure that no graphs or written patterns were needed. Hence, their designs could never be stolen or copied.
India with its breathtaking and varied textile traditions is in the enviable position of having practically all the styles of weaving, printing, and embroidery still intact.
And when the new age designers, instead of dipping into this immeasurable storehouse of natural fabrics, infinite designs, unlimited patterns, choose to opt for machine made and synthetic fabrics, to create their often unwearable monstrosities, one can only pity them for they know not what they miss.
In the 70s, 80s and early 90s, Kamladevi Chattop-adhyay, Martand Singh, Ritu Kumar, Pupul Jaykar, Jaya Jaitly, Laila Tyebji made the effort to work with craftsmen and weavers to help rediscover tradition or create newer designs within tradition to give it a twist. This triggered off a revolution of sorts.
However, unfortunately, all the PYTs (pretty young things, silly!) are so busy trying to conform to the herd of half naked women, none of whom make any visual impact in their attempt to look global. Designers too are not working on creating textiles and fabrics, but are happy to just design with the existing fabrics.
In such a scenario, Gunjan Arora is a designer who stands out for his quest for actually creating fabrics that are more like art pieces rather than clothes to be worn. He does this by putting together myriad threads as per his visualisation, to create forms and figures and then stitching them to hold them together with almost invisible transparent thread. The final impact is of these coloured threads and the tale they have to tell. The threads are of varying thickness and weight, as he juxtaposes linen, cotton, silk and wool inseparably. At an exhibition this week Gunjan did art pieces that he stretched like canvases instead of limiting them by encasing them in frames. The works were an interesting mix of both figurative and abstract pieces that were elegant and really striking.
Unlike abroad, where textile art is an appreciated form, it may take Indian art collectors a while to understand this art form.

Alka Raghuvanshi is
an art writer,
curator and artist