Touching the Untouchables

There was no mistaking the train to Bhuj.  When half the female passengers are wearing exciting, rather large, heavy-looking tribal jewelery, and their dresses are embroidered  with a million tiny mirrors, you know you are heading for an adventure. Bhuj, a medium-sized city, is the heart of Kutch (a.k.a Kachchh) a vast, semi-desert area which is home to myriad communities of tribal people. According to the state of Gujarat, Kutch is home to to 15 million people, of which 11 million live in 949 villages, only 60% of which are accessible by paved roads. The relatively flat grassland has always been good for grazing and attracted nomadic herders from Sindh, Afghanistan and beyond.  Rabari, Jath, Harijan and Ahirs are but few of the distinct groups who have settled in Kutch and maintain their unique lifestyles, traditional way of dress  and, of course, handicrafts. The area is mainly known for fine embroidery, but weaving, metalwork, block printing or wood carving are some of the other crafts that are masterfully executed here. Considering that our house is already a self-described "Ethnic Depot", we were thrilled by the thought of all of those handicrafts awaiting us.

Our key to this treasure trove of wonders was Mr. Pramod Jethi.  A local celebrity, and curator of the 18th century Aina Mahal (Mirror palace) Mr. Jethi is a one man tourist information office and an endless source of information about the area's history and traditions.  We spent many hours in pleasant conversation with him, eagerly absorbing all of encyclopedic knowledge of all things Kutchi. From embroidery to architecture, his family history to current affairs, Mr. Jethi is a fascinating person, and a wonderful story-teller.

Through him, we hooked up with Kishor and his all-terrain auto-rickshaw and headed off into the Indian "Wild West".  Our first stop was in Badaroi, a village that is half Rabari and half Harijan. We first had a saucer of tea (why wash more cups than you need to) and watched some local old men play a game with black and white pebbles and pieces of chipped pottery on a game board conveniently drawn in chalk on the bench of the bus shelter.  We had a great time watching the parade of moustaches and turbans, while they were having even more fun looking at two westerners trying to sip scalding tea from small, generously filled saucers.  It all looked so elegant when they did it, but really, if you ever plan on coming here we recommend trying this at home (preferably in the bath tub) before doing it in public.

We were then abducted by a group of Harijan women who insisted we had lunch at their house. They were very impressed by Kim's Indian attire and promptly invited her for a trial by fire of Indian-ness -  by testing her chapati-making skills.  She was invited to sit on the ground in the yard , surrounded by at least half the village and prove her domestic worthiness by making a round of chapatis on a wood fire.  They seemed impressed by her rolling technique, but laughed at her lack of control of the wood fire, and the fact that the smoke kept getting in her eyes. Harijan, or "Children of God" is the term coined by Gandhi for "untouchable" or "scheduled" castes. The Harijans of Kutch belong to the Meghwar tribe and, like pretty much everyone else in Kutch, are know for their beautiful and unique embroidery. After a simple lunch of chapatis, a potato dish and a deliciously fire-y mango pickle, we got down to the usual business of mehendi (this time for real), bindis, comparative jewelry and another saucer or two of tea. They definitely won in the jewelry competition, as their nose and earrings were solid gold discs the size of quarters and their silver anklets weighed at least 2 kg and looked like they had been hammered on for life.

Refreshed, fed, and decorated in henna, we pressed on.  We stopped at  some other villages, visiting a wood carver who was producing beautiful geometric designs without ever using a ruler and two groups of women doing intricate Ahir embroidery that takes months to complete.

As the heat of the day finally dissipated we came to our last stop, the block printing workshop of Dr. Ismail Khatri.  The Khatri family have been in this line of work for the last eleven generations.  The name "Khatri" means "Master of colours", and these people are indeed the masters.  Using only vegetable dyes and intricate developing and fixing processes, they produce the most amazing, colourfully printed fabrics.  Entering their large inner yard we were shown an series of large bubbling cauldrons, vats and tanks containing dyes made of indigo, pomegranate peel, madder root and henna.  Off to the side, a large barrel contained a dangerous-looking cocktail made of  rusty old pipes, water and jaggery (unrefined cane sugar).  This was iron oxide, used to make black through a chemical reaction.

Our guide for this tour was the 27 year old Sufiyan, who, together with his brother, now runs the business. The real magic, however, happens over six long tables in a cavernous back room, where the fabrics are pinned and hand printed with remarkable precision. There are at least  three different blocks for each pattern, and they need to be placed exactly over the same place on the cloth.  To do this they first mark the entire length of cloth (about 10m) with a line by using an ingenious system of twanging a chalk loaded string pinned to two end points. This is their point of reference for the entire printing process. After completing the actual printing, the visible colours are still surprisingly monochromatic- different shades of beige and brown. The transformation of this into the rainbow of colours typical to Ajrakh printing comes through the natural reactions of the various dyes with a series of mordents and fixers, a process involving up to sixteen different washes.

We were so excited by what we had seen that we got invited back to visit again, an offer which we eagerly accepted, since we needed a good nights sleep to decide on all the different fabrics, scarves and other items we wanted to buy. We also got along very well with Sufiyan, and spent a rainy afternoon at his workshop watching the workers scurry to and fro to bring in all the cloth that had been drying in the field before the rain shower. Since we were stuck there until the storm let up, we ended up with more than twenty meters of cloth.

Sufiyan mentioned that monsoon time was perfect weather for chicken tandoori and invited us to join him and friends at their favourite road-side chicken stall.  If you have ever traveled in India, the words "chicken" and "roadside" in the same sentence should send shivers down your spine.  However, as Sufiyan and his friends looked rather healthy, we decided to trust our local guides.  Once we got there, however, they didn't seem so sure if this was such a good place for us any more, and asked repeatedly if we wanted to eat in the car.  Picture this: in the midst of a dilapidated neighbourhood, under a corrugated tin roof,  is a guy with a large oil vat over an open fire on a four-wheeled pushcart,  frying vivid orange morsels of chicken.  Behind him, about 20 men are seated on plastic chairs, surrounded by cows, dogs, cats and a million flies, all waiting for a piece of the action.  Now try to imagine a nice western lady amidst all that, and you can understand why the possibility of eating in the car was all of a sudden so attractive to our friend. Sitting at that table, with all those guys, however, turned out to be very comfortable.  Because of our local friends no one bothered us, asked us our name, walked up and shouted "HI!" or pestered us for a "country coin". Sufiyan ordered plate after plate of the piping hot orange chicken, and even though we were unable to keep up with our hosts, we had to agree that this was a very nice way to pass a rainy afternoon.

Kutch and its people are so beautiful, that we went a little crazy with the photos.  There is a lot more to see in our picasa album.