For a real taste of Jaipur's spirit, there's no better introduction than its craft scene
The master weaver stands up and starts to sing. His voice echoes around the carpet warehouse, a high warble pure and true, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and goosebumps ripple along my arms. Below him, cross-legged on the floor, three members of his family work as one, their fingers knotting hundreds of threads in a hypnotic dance of hands.
I’ve joined an art-focused tour with the Pink City Rickshaw Company, an inspiring enterprise training vulnerable women in guiding, and our escort for the day, Bhagya Singh, is a smiling bundle of joy. She points out metalsmiths hammering silver into paper-thin sheets in Subhash Chowk, before we arrive at Mishra Marble Creation and I’m suddenly surrounded by Hindu deities, snow-white elephants and huge tigers so lifelike they seem ready to spring.
Indeed the city’s architecture is so stunning it’s a work of art in itself, I think, as we pass beneath Chandpole Gate and enter the Old City. This walled area is over 300 years old, and the historical heart of Jaipur. A rabbit warren of tiny alleyways, bazaars and temples, much of it’s painted in a soft terracotta — the reason Jaipur is known as the Pink City.
I pause to buy a lassi in a traditional clay cup, before turning down a side street in search of the faded frescoes Bhagya had told me to look out for. In the 1700s, these paintings denoted the professions of the families living within the buildings they adorned, and while only a few dozen remain, trades are still passed down through generations here, so when I spot a peeling potter’s wheel just visible on a pink wall, I peer hopefully around for a craftsman at his wheel.
“Listen,” Florence says, as we get out of the car beside Sanghi Ji Temple, which is dedicated to Jainism, a religion with over 70,000 devotees in Jaipur. A deep, rhythmic thudding fills the air, emanating, it seems, from every building lining the lane. We enter a tumbledown warehouse and it’s a wondrous sight: wooden tables, 160 feet long, draped in fabric and lined with artisans. “The cogs of this community are still the rangrez , chhipas , and dhobi ,” she continues.
Every element of this process is done by hand, from carving the wood and printing the pattern to washing the fabric and hanging it out to dry. It’s a long process, labour intensive and slow, but the results are exquisite and every piece is unique. “With the world’s growing interest in slow, sustainable fashion, block printing has really seized people’s imaginations,” says Florence.
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