Genesis

BY RASHMI SINGH

“Awalkhana” is inspired by my grandmother, Smt. Radhika Singh’s untold creativity expressed in her exquisite and exceptionally fine “Kashida” (the most ancient and traditional form of intrinsic art of thread work and embroidery known to be practised in Bhojpur region of Bihar, Irkal in Karnatka and Kashmir. In Bhojpur, Bihar, this typically is referred to as Bharua Kasida), sampled and treasured in an almost 80-85 years old “Awalkhana” made by her. This family heirloom for the longest time travelled from closets of various women in my paternal family until it reached my mother’s and caught my eye. I immediately took possession of it and became its proud but passive owner. Like all the previous closets, it stayed hidden and locked, decorating my closet. Before I proceed to share my journey of self-awakening and exploration, let me very briefly present the context and meaning of my chosen title “Awalkhana”. An “Awalkhana”, in the discourse of textile history and heritage denotes a sampler created by women of Bihar who practised “Kashida”. This sampler, typically a piece of cloth housed a diverse range of traditional motifs, designs and patterns hand-embroidered by women. It acted as a master chart that young girls could refer to and imitate designs in order to attain mastery over the technique. This embroidery was done by following the warp threads and running the embroidery stitches following the line of weft threads, giving rise to an effect of an extra weft weave on the fabric. The master chart was created with the intent to preserve, conserve and transfer the everyday art to the generation ahead. In short, to keep the tradition alive. What fascinated me about this concept is the ingenuity and foresight of women within the household towards conservation for posterity. It is amazing to see how indigenous methods did what advanced, sophisticated technology and know-how is supposed to achieve in this day and age. As is seen on my grandmother’s “Awalkhana”, the patterns were a culmination and reflection of both- firstly, the moods and spirits of their creator. Secondly, they were enriched by creative imagination and creator’s association with subjects of their everyday life. The patters mostly comprised delicate, highly stylised abstract, geometrical, folk and nature motifs. With the lack of royal, courtly patronage, “Kashida” in Bihar did not see the light of commercial production in “karkhanas”. It remained restricted to items of personal, household use. Women in Bihar webbed and decorated many objects of everyday use such as baby clothes, baby jhulas, sarees, blouses, petticoats, cushion covers, bed linen etc. with a fine maze of “kashida”. Many of these fine decorative objects, especially bridal apparel adorned the jhaanpi (decorative gift boxes for a bride and her to-be mother-in-law) that was sent with brides at the time of departure from their natal homes. Thus the “Awalkhana” became the instrument and agent that aided conservation and transmission of creative traditions, knowledge systems practised within family and household. My passive ownership of this legacy suddenly underwent a transformation into a curious, hungry and intrigued desire to explore and find out more about it. Although I had it safe with me since long, I never was motivated to try my hand at imitating any of the designs or learn the technique. My curiosity, hunger and deep love for it, on the contrary, found its landing ground firstly, in the passion I had for my discipline and subject of training, Sociology. Secondly, in my passion for textiles with its variety of textures, hues and styles. When I am not immersed in my professional work, I indulge myself in textiles, experimenting with them and self-stylising to create my own line of clothes. Both these passions pushed me, unsettled me to ideate and ask questions that eventually helped me find my connect with this legacy, define my own heritage. It not only surfaced my personal observations and memories of the bond I shared with my grandmother but also sparked off questions about her life as a person. I grew very keen on knowing about my grandmother, more as a person and an individual that she was. It urged me to go beyond the obvious, of my relationship and of my love for her as a grandchild, to know and understand more about herself within the feudal patriarchal household which she was married into. With no or negligible participation in the public domain outside the household, like most women of her times, it is no surprise she led a restricted, immured life. Her everyday life in the marital home was tough and demanding. Her day started as early as 4:00 am, with all day and evening spent in household chores and looking after the children and elders. The affluence of the family did not provide her with any significant support or scope for leisure to find time for her individual self. What disturbed me more than the above stated obvious was when I began to enquire about her life from her own children, that is, my father, his brothers and sisters! They all somehow, (I assume unconsciously and not deliberately), failed to capture what was innate to her as an individual. Their narratives were either overtly sympathetic to her struggles in the marital home, celebrating her innate altruism or were constructed around the glory of her illustrious patrilineage both in her natal and marital home. These narratives were outcomes of their naturalised and normalised experiences of the patrilineal family. They failed miserably in meeting my expectations, as they gave no insight into my grandmother's interests, leisure, passions, likes or dislikes. None of them in their narratives mentioned or spoke about the “Awalkhana” she created, until I cajoled them to. The fact that her own children and dear ones failed to see the ‘artist’in her bothered me. The power of her imagination and keen observation of everyday life expressed so intricately in the fine “kashida” patterns couldn’t possibly be missed out in any narrative or conversation about her. Eventually, after being prompted, they did get to where I intended them to. With praises for the finesse, perfection and creative imagination of her “Kashida”, there also emerged a mention of how she stole moments late at night under the lantern to create such masterpieces. She wasn’t allowed the time to do so at her own will but she did negotiate her moments of leisure. That inner strength, courage and freedom of thought and expression in her, to me is commendable, worth celebrating. It tells not one but many stories. Her “Awalkhana” to me then ceased to be just an object of art and transcended itself to become a repository of the social-cultural life, myths, legends, traditions, symbols and folklores of her time. This realisation, shifted and disrupted my perspective giving rise to a completely new paradigm. The new paradigm led me into asking uncomfortable questions about my family and the society at large. Firstly, the question of how women find no space and visibility in being active creators, contributors, conservators and carriers of family legacy. Secondly, the question of undermining and underplaying the women to women bond and camaraderie. This is especially in the context of patriarchal systems in which women mostly became and were seen as their carriers/agents, thereby, became antagonistic to one another. Further, I felt very compelled and driven to make visible and celebrate household heritage, traditions that existed in everyday lives of people. The pleasure of owning a piece of family legacy, already seems compounded by the pleasure of sharing through further explorations of possibilities and my memories. This joy and temptation to explore new possibilities of showcasing and sharing the “Awalkhana”as tribute to my grandmother and as an inspiration to others to become a part of my journey for discovering their household heritage, took me to my mentor and friend, a renowned art historian, Ms. Shobita Punja. She, like always, was all eyes and ears to what I had in mind. Soon her daughter Samiha joined us in the conversation and Shobita started thinking about who could be the best person to take this forward to. Very generously and promptly, she called Ms. Jasleen Dhamija and requested her to meet me that very moment. I was touched by her gesture and felt much supported. In the next half an hour, I was sitting with Ms. Dhamija, the veteran Indian textile art historian and crafts expert, known for her pioneering research on handloom and handicraft industry, especially history of textiles and costumes. As I showed her the “Awalkhana”, she examined it very keenly and remarked,’this is one of the finest “kashida” of Bihar that I have seen. You don’t find this anymore. How do you want me to help you?’ When she heard what I had in mind, she replied, ‘the real tribute to your grandmother will be when you, yourself research on it, photograph it, narrate your personal connect with it, conserve and revive it. Don’t give it away to a museum or as an assignment to someone else. It should rather be owned and driven by you. Go back to your hometown and find out if women in that place still practised this art. In such a short meeting, she opened my mind to a plethora of possibilities around it. I am fortunate to having met with her and find for myself a new teacher, mentor and guide. She sent me back with some basic assignment of researching more on the ‘piece of cloth’; conserve it better for posterity by photographing and illustrating each of the 100 something, small and big “kashida” samples that it housed. She also told me to take on all that she spoke about in small strides and not be bogged down by constraint of time. That gave me hope. My meetings with Shobita and Jasleen put me into a very unique state of mind, I experienced a concoction of emotions of being inquisitive, restless, and desperate while at the same time confronted and confused with so many ideas gushing in my mind. I was unable to focus and concentrate my energies upon any one start that I would make to this end. I stayed with this feeling for some time and finally met Smita Singh, a textile conservator who I was introduced to by Shobita Punja. I was thrilled to learn the basics of conserving it professionally from her. My restlessness settled into my first moment of self-fulfilment when I was finally able to conserve the; ‘piece of cloth’; (until then I had not researched and figured out its name “Awalkhana”) with all the resource and technical guidance I had received from Smita. My passive ownership of it had transformed itself into ‘my heritage, my preserve’;. Though I admit there were long gaps between my next steps, at no time was I cut off from the desire and motivation of their execution. My travel and work schedule allowed me very little time to move forward into researching and photographing the “Awalkhana” patterns. At which point, Ankita, my friend’s daughter stepped into my plan with her passion for photography. A few months later, I decided to visit the Crafts Museum Library. There, I read whatever was available on “Kashida” of Bihar. It was then that I discovered that this embroidered ‘piece of cloth’; was called“Awalkhana”. I instantly fell in love with the name, its meaning and purpose. On exploring the literature available on “kashida” at the Crafts Museum further, I found this tradition of hand embroidery was also practised in Kashmir and Karnataka. An interesting observation and question crossed my mind when I read on the comparison between the “kashida” of Kashmir with “Kashida” of Bihar. Unlike the “kashida” of Bihar that was practised by women, mostly as leisure or for personal household consumption, the kashida of Kashmir was practised by men and the products, as we all know, have had an important place in the early trade circuit. It also received patronage from the royalty during the Mughal era. This made me question and reason out the aspect of visibility and invisibility of various forms and layers of heritage, art and craft traditions. Did the relationship and dynamics between gender and public space, have an impact on the immurement or contrastingly the popularity, commodification and marketability of heritage and art forms? It is interesting to note this contrast in context of “kashida” of Bihar that remained restricted to the household while in Kashmir, it gained popularity as a masterpiece, worthy of price and exchangeability. It has travelled and traversed trade routes, reaching out to the world. With myriad thoughts, ideas and questions in my mind, I began to stitch them all together, in order to crystallise them into possibilities and opportunities that I desired to create with my “Awalkhana”. As a humble attempt, I settled on the idea of creating a platform to humanise, democratise and make visible household heritage and art. To open up private, everyday art and heritage of common people, allowing it to come into contact, and forge dialogue with the dominant, public and niche forms of heritage and art. My desire for the above was very organically connected with my desire to showcase and offer a tribute to my grandmother’s “Awalkhana”.