Of Rich Textiles & Historic Lineages: A Textile Trail in Kachchh and Ahmedabad
If you’ve decided to embark on a discovery of offbeat destinations in India, Kachchh is definitely on top of the charts. What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when we say “Kachchh”?
If you’re thinking “White, endless expanses of shimmering salt flats with the border somewhere in the distance and flocks of pink flamingos moving like a carpet undulating in the distance”, you wouldn’t be wrong.
But here’s what we’d like you to think about. This custom India tour will bring you up, close and personal with the endless expanses of refreshing lush greenery. Huge freshwater lakes that play host to one of the world’s largest concentration of migratory and resident birds. The opportunity to learn that a grouse is not just a grudge, an adjutant is not just a military rank and a warbler is not just a bathroom singer.
And if that’s not enough, we’ll also throw in an upstream fish migration as part of your customised travel experience to Kachchh. Who says you have to go to Alaska to see that?
Culinary and textile and craft experiences in Kachchh
Equally well marketed is Kutch’s rich and bountiful handicrafts heritage. You’ve worn its eye-catching block prints, showed off its well-crafted jewellery and marvelled at its perfectly wrought metalwork. But wouldn’t you like to clamber into a handcrafted dhow, made in a traditional style that lets it sail to the East African coast? And would you like to meet an engineer who makes 2000 ton ships without being able to even sign his name? We thought you would.
Kachchh is also well known for its riot of colours – the glinting white of the salt flats, the pleasing pink of the flamingos, the rainbow hues of the block print. How about ochre, mustard, burnt sienna, yellow, orange and mahogany? That’s just some of the colours you can identify when we take you to an ancient riverbed that has been weathered over the centuries into a bewitching range of shapes and shades. This is a part of our offbeat travel experiences in India.
Of course, you can’t really get a proper taste of Kachchh without savouring its rich cuisine. While this isn’t a culinary holiday, we will tell you what you will be served – aulu (baingan bharta, to the uninitiated), rotlo (bajra rotis) and sweet-and-sour kadhi. And don’t be fooled by the familiarity of the names – the taste is anything but. What else can you expect when the main seasoning is love?
Navigating through Ahmedabad
After you have been on a textile travel experience to Kachchh, you must also witness some of the most sought-after textiles in Ahmedabad.
Breakaway ventures into the stories and traditions that have created the fabric of contemporary India and provided the world with some of the finest threads and most sought after textiles.
Start your day in Ahmedabad with a curated walk,around the world-renowned Calico Museum of Textiles, archiving textiles from the Mughal and Provincial Courts with a display of intricate dyeing, weaving, printing and embroidery techniques from across India. This is an integral part of your textile and craft trail to Gujarat.
Next up is lunch at Swati Snacks, where a quick bite must include panki and sugar cane juice or thalipeeth, and khichu cooked to spiced perfection!
As part of your textile experience in Gujarat, heritage walks in the old city, including exploring old havelis and the quintessential amdavadi market, Rani No Hajiro (Queen’s tomb), known for traditional clothing, accessories, traditional fabrics, vessels and mythological sculptures, is also included.
Straight after this, you drive out of the city for a craft and textile experience, about 45 minutes to meet the Chitaras, a handful of artists that still make hand painted Pachadis- a kalamkari art form traditional to Gujarat. The Chitara families of the wandering Waghris tribe of Gujarat visualize Goddess’s many manifestations as hand-painted or block-printed images on textiles, surrounded by stories from myths, epics and folk traditions.
‘Mata-ni-Pachedi’ translates literally to ‘that which enshrines the Goddess’. In olden times, the Harijan community or the lower castes, often labeled untouchables, did not have access to temples. Made on cotton or silk fabric, hand painted Pachedis worked as their own personal shrines that were used for worship of the Goddess.
Today, only five families are left practising this craft and take more than a month to complete one pachedi. These portable shrines are used as decorative wall pieces and usually get sold around the time of Navaratras, preserving the tradition of worship through art.
As you drive back to the city, a quick stop over at a quaint bookstore to meet the gentleman who will wax eloquent about the best books ever written on Indian textiles and sell you some in the bargain offering a deal sweeter than basundi.
You see for yourself the love, hard work, skill and artistry that goes into the making of fabrics the world celebrates…. Come Breakaway and discover the world of craft and textile trails with us.