Through Sepia Toned Sunglasses

With our days at Bhuj(Gujarat, India) coming to an end, some last minute shopping was in order. The crafts Village, tucked away in a little village about 20 minutes away, looked like any other handicrafts complex for tourists. Wooden doors opened into small rooms wherein a humble artist stood. An old woman, welcomed us into her hut, an expert of threadwork. Eyes sparkling with excitement she ran us through everything she had to sell. A variety of patches, shawls, dupattas. Her work was brilliant, her enthusiasm unwavering, but what touched me the most was her trust. Disarming, blind trust. My mother had picked out a few things that she wanted to buy, and when asked how much all of it would cost, this old woman said, she said “please count and tell me, I don’t know how to count”. A tear trickled down my cheek. I walked away as my mother stood there with a tear in her eye. A moment of solitude was required, so I went for a walk. On returning, a friendly old man invited me to his hut where he was already entertaining the rest of my family. His area of expertise he claimed was Bandhni, the traditional art of tie and dye. The son of a Bandhni artisan he was groomed into this profession. He called me by my name and told me, he said, he wasn’t a man of much education and he probably couldn’t talk as well as a salesman could, the only thing he could do was Bandhni and that was all that he could live by. He wished that I would understand, and I did. Collapsing under the weight of these impromptu emotions, I made for the last hut. Inside sat a weaver. Diligence in his skilled hands, he weaved a series of colours. His hut was full of luminescence, rugs, carpets, the works. A father of a small boy, he wished his little one would one day weave alongside him. He had left his home and come to this Crafts Village where he was given this hut for a month, much like the old woman and the friendly old man. They earn as much as they can in those 30 days and they are never heard from again, the truth of the artisan in Kuchh today.

Almost every door had a story, and I felt just too fragile to hear every one of them. Kuchh has a million stories, and through these sepia toned sunglasses, this was the story she wanted to tell me.