Colors and Textures of Indian Textiles: Photos

These sarees were waiting to be picked up at the dry cleaner's; the display case was above the counter where clothes are dropped off and picked up.  Textiles woven and printed all over India are worn as sarees, dupattas (scarves), shawls, and tailored clothing, and they are also used to cover tables and beds.  Living with such beauty is good for the soul, for my soul at least. 

 

 

 

 

When I come to Bombay, I buy most of my dupattas at this small shop in an old market near Chembur Station.  The shop is more like a stall, maybe six feet wide and four feet deep.  Two floor-to-ceiling displays on either side of the stall are at right angles to the counter. 

A close-up of scarves at my favorite shop.

Kashmiri embroidery, at the Cottage Industries Emporium in Delhi.

Kashmiri embroidery on black fabric.

This embroidery was amazing in its detail.  I cannot remember now what part of India it was from, but the northeast rings a bell.  I saw this at the Cottage Industries Emporium in Delhi.

 

 

Silk brocade, at the Cottage Industries Emporium in Delhi. 

Perfectly Ordinary

Recently acquired dupattas

Saturday evening treats

Bombay, India.  June 18, 2012

I walked to the neighborhood sweet shop the other evening to buy some sev ki mithai, a Sindhi specialty I have loved my whole life. A cousin of mine calls it heaven on a spoon.

I was by myself.

That in itself was remarkable. My parents, whom I am visiting, don't like my going places in Bombay alone--even though this is a cosmopolitan, lively city where a woman alone is absolutely unremarkable. Maybe their hesitation stems from the decades I've lived abroad, away from India. Or maybe it comes from years of protecting me as a teenager when we lived in Kuwait.

My parents are okay with my walking around with Marilyn, my partner, so long we report in by mobile phone regularly. But she returned to the States a few days ago. Anyway, when I walk around with a tall, white woman, the only one around for miles, my foreignness is more marked.

That evening, though, I felt blissfully ordinary. When a cousin dropped me off near my parents’ apartment building after we had been to the movies, I was just another woman out on a Saturday in a salwaar kameez, the ubiquitous baggy pants and tunic. My dupatta, the long, flowing scarf, was draped across my shoulders. I love dupattas and had bought this one, sheer black and embossed with gold paisleys, only that morning. ("You and your dupattas," my mother had smiled indulgently).

As I walked to the sweet shop, avoiding muddy puddles left by the recent rain, I did not worry about looking "exotic," as I do in the States. And I knew I wouldn't have to explain my clothes to a fellow American.

I speak Hindi without a foreign accent, so I was able to buy the sweets and then pick up a Limca, a lemon-lime soda, at a nearby restaurant without drawing attention to myself.

For a brief time, I was neither an American in India nor an Indian in America. I was just another woman in Bombay, a woman who loves dupattas and sev ki mithai, unremarkable and ordinary.

Looking up

The autorickshaw drivers were preoccupied when my father and I walked out this afternoon to the busy road in front of my parents' apartment building in Bombay. As we tried to hail an auto, the driver waved us off, gesturing vaguely above him before pulling over to chat with a fellow auto driver. I noticed other people looking up.

A ladder was leaning against a tree, and a rope dangled from a branch. Someone had been trimming the tree to prevent branches from breaking off in the monsoon rains.

The tiny leaves of this large, old tree filter the sunlight, offering a refuge to the auto drivers who line up along the road, to the owners of the tiny shops on the sidewalk, and to those of us who venture out into the muggy warmth that is Bombay in June.

Yet, until today, I hadn't quite noticed the grandeur of this tree. I'm glad everyone was looking up when I walked out this afternoon.

The Taj Mahal by Night

On the night of the full moon in June--just a few days ago—my partner, Marilyn, and I had passes to visit the Taj Mahal.

We arrived at the east gate of the Taj on a small bus, one of three that carried the handful of tourists who had passes for the night viewing. The buses took us the kilometer from the entrance offices to the monument; several police officers accompanied us. Each visitor went through two security checks and was allowed to carry only money and identification. No cameras and no mobile phones.

As we walked from the outer gate to the inner one, a floodlight lit our path.  Police with rifles walked with us, directing us occasionally with gestures.  Except for the visitors’ whispers and the police’s occasional commands, there was quiet. 

The monsoons are on their way, and the sky was overcast that night. We had worried the moon would not come out, but that night, it did not matter.  We were among only a few dozen people facing the Taj Mahal.

Marilyn and I had been to the monument that afternoon, so we had witnessed how its color changed in changing daylight. We had seen the inlaid marble up close and had been inside the monument, walking around the replicas of the tombs on the main floor of the Taj (the entrance to the tombs below has been closed to tourists for over a decade).  We had witnessed hundreds of tourists, most of them Indian, taking countless photographs. 

Now, there we were, without a camera, behind a metal barricade at the sandstone platform about a quarter mile from the Taj.  Once we were all gathered, the floodlight was turned off.  We were in the dark. 

The small group spoke in hushed tones.  Some expressed disappointment: “We can’t see anything.”  What we could see was the silhouette of the Taj, nearly black against a pale, cloudy sky that reflected the amber lights of the city.  As our eyes adjusted to the dark, we saw the path and the rows of trees leading up to the monument.  Because the Taj is on the banks of the Yamuna River and nothing is built behind it, one sees only the Taj when one looks straight at it.  That view of the Taj against the sky, with its complete symmetry, is part of what makes it breathtaking--even in the dark, even when seen only in silhouette.

Not having a camera made us pay attention in a different way: we noticed what was in front of us and around us rather than what we saw in the frame of the camera.  Heat lightning lit the sky a few times.  Stray dogs fought behind the Taj somewhere.  A single fluorescent light shone inside the Taj, above the tombs.  For a half hour, we stood in the hush and reminded ourselves that we were really at the Taj Mahal.