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When you take a land and
fill it with people who love celebrations, and whose love
for colour is unparalleled, even while it is sophisticated in its simplicity,
chances are you will come across a range of arts and crafts that meets with their
particular needs. It isn’t an unfair assumption in the case of Rajasthan. The bazaars
spill with produce, and there is a magnificent glow
of colours that permeates the marts and spills over to the people themselves. There is
nothing that is subtle about it either. Colours dance on textiles and fabrics, glow in
between gold settings, is woven into the thread of rugs and carpets: it is a bountiful
celebration where the range of materials at their command is put to amazing use.
Rajasthani crafts have
emerged not as a decorative feature, but as essential parts of their lives. They took
their utensils parts of their lives. They took their utensils and gave them shapes and
forms that were pleasing to the eye; they decorated their clothes so that, in the dull
surroundings of the desert they could lend colour to its barrenness; they wore jewellery
and embroidered shoes; they made paintings to honour their gods and record historic
events; they decorated their damascened swords with precious stones and wore amulets of
gold to war. In it all, there was an air of insouciance: we live, therefore we must do
so with zest.
Not all the craft
traditions of Rajasthan have originated locally. Since the trade routes lay through
their kingdoms, they were able to not only learn of the development of arts in other
parts of the world, but also, at will, kidnap master artisans and ensconce them in their
own ateliers, adding new dimensions to their already rich repertoires. Increasing cross-fertilisation
with the Mughals, who in turn were inspired by the Rajputs, brought new ideas to
bear on their already bursting creative wealth. There was renewed zeal with which
miniature paintings were outlined, a freshness to their approach to jewellery, a sense
of vigour with which they adorned themselves and their homes.
For most people, however,
this sense of colour is misleading: only people from Rajasthan know its significance.
The odhnis or veils of the women, for example, can be used to signify anything from
status and parenthood to denoting seasons and representing regions, a tale similarly
told by the turbans the mustachioed men wear, or the jewellery they sport.
Walking through the
bazaars in Jaipur, for example, is an amazing experience: silver ornaments sold by the
kilos, fistfuls of semi-precious and precious stones offered
off pave-ments, mountains of hand-block printed fabrics piled up in shops, quilts
strung up to hang, as colourful as the veils fluttering in the adjoining store, rows
upon rows of terracotta pots, evenly arranged pairs of embroidered shoes, piles of
paintings, and amazing heaps of wood and metal-crafted objects piled into incredible
pyramids…this is a medieval bazaar come to life and bursting with the passion with
which the people of this state lead their daily lives.
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