Remembering

I may have had a difficult time choosing my photo today if not for the days end.

Seven years ago, when I first began working in Jaipur, I interviewed a man named Sri Ram Chandra Chhippa. His son, Vijendra, had suggested that I interview him about his memories of textile printing when Sri Ram Chandra Chhippa was a young man just beginning his family. When I interviewed him, he was likely in his 80s. Here is a short excerpt of that interview:

First we would sit and do resist print (dabu), then we would dye the cloth, then finally we did the printing and sent the fabric to Jaipur. There would be a weekly fair in the city called Haatwara. In that fair thousands of printers would come with their fabric and there were a lot of traditional old designs that would be printed. Before it used to be curtains, bedsheets, quilts and saris. Also material for the turban. There were around seven colors that were used and the Rajasthani wraps were mainly done in red green and yellow. In one kind of scarf the base color would be yellow with red prints and green all over the border. On another type the base color would be red with a small black print design there would again be a small white print (called a bhundi). First we would dye the fabric red then print black on it. In Ram Niwas Bagh and City Palace area you will still find the old prints. Back during that time production was very difficult because it was small scale. But we would send our prints to Bikaner, Jodhpur, almost all over India in every district, but we did not export. ... At that time many of our prints also stayed in Rajasthan and we would sell door to door on bicycles and with a camel cart. At that time we had no other vehicles to carry our cloth. Back when we sold door to door people would give silver coins, and when we sold to farmers they would give parts of their crops. Then it was mainly barter system. The Mahajan [city head] would act as a money lender and give us money for raw cloth.

Last year, Ram Chandra Chhippa died. I returned to his home for the first time in six years this week and heard the sad news. This evening I was given the honor of being invited to a puja for those who have passed (his son's word). I sat in a closed off street with the women, my scarf over my head, listening to the chanting of the pandit for a little over an hour. When he was finished, Vijendra called me aside with the men and I was able to give respect to his father by throwing rose petals onto the stage where the pandit had been sitting. Then we followed the flow of men to a temple of Baba Namdev, who might be described as the patron saint of the printing caste, and I was able to pay my respects both to Namdev and to Sri Ram Chandra Chhippa.

Also, in the women's group, was one of my closest friends - A woman who I lived with for over a year. She and her sister and I slept, studied, and gossiped in a small room in her parents' house. She and her sister married and left home the same week I flew back to America six years ago. She has a daughter (whom I got to meet) and a son. I wanted to spend more time talking with her, but I was whisked away into the stream of men and then taken back to my hotel before I could see her again.

The two men in this photo are printers in the shop of Sri Ram Chandra's sons. Based on their work in printing, the sons have built exquisite houses with marble floors and arched doorways. Sri Ram Chandra got to see these houses finished before he died.

If you look closely, you can see the outline of the design on the block that the printer on the right is holding up. Also note that the cloth in the background has been printed three times, while the one in front of the printers is only being printed for a second time. In this type of printing the blocks are set down one beside the other, and different colors and layers are then printed over the top of the first set of blocks. Note the size of the textile and the size of the block.