Ajrakh Printing in Dhamadka
Another set of images from the archives! Dhamadka is one of two remaining places in Gujarat where traditional ajrakh block printing is still done. See the MAIWA website for how the cloth evolves from start-to-finish. It’s an extremely labor-intensive process and the results are gorgeous. The last image shown here was a test cloth, but I [...]
Modern Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad, the commercial capital of Gujarat, has a handful of interesting modern buildings by Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier, Buckminster Fuller, B.V. Doshi and Charles Correa. It also has the amazing Calico Museum of Textiles, the Gandhi Ashram, and some of India’s best schools for architecture and design. Unfortunately, many of these buildings are not open [...]
Morning Stroll in Bhuj
I was feeling oddly energetic my last morning in Bhuj, the main city of the Kutch region, and went for a walk to see what I would find. Not much happens in Bhuj before 10am, so I ended up photographing architecture, which was glowing in the morning light. The city’s buildings were badly damaged by [...]
Shivratri Festival
Shivratri symbolizes the wedding day of Lord Shiva and Parvati and is an auspicious days for Hindus. In Kutch there was a Shivratri festival at a small village north of Bhuj. I took the bus, always an adventure in itself, and spent the day there. (The only other foreigners there were a guy from Japan [...]
Tea with the Rabaris
The Rabaris are a Hindu tribe found in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, and other northwest Indian states, as well as in Pakistan. Their traditional occupation is raising and herding animals like goats, camels and cattle. They were once nomadic but have almost completely settled into villages. The women are famous for their textile embroidery, and in [...]
