Sephari India

Category: Journal

  • Assam Tea: A Plant Found Wild

    By Isla Quinn Wild first. That is how the record starts: a plant growing in the forest, noticed by a trader. The 1820s Tocklai Tea Research Institute says Robert Bruce found wild tea plants near Rangpur, in the area now called Sibsagar, in 1823 during a trading mission, and that his brother C. A. Bruce…

  • Moradabad Brass: How It Is Made

    By Porter Lang Start with the sand. Before there is a lamp or a bowl, there is a hollow pressed into river sand, and the metal goes in hot. The casting The government craft portal for handicrafts says scrap copper, zinc and lead are melted with flux and poured into iron moulds to form brass…

  • Kanchipuram Silk: The Join

    By Ines Keane The border does not come off. That is the claim at the centre of Kanchipuram silk, and two government-linked sources make it in nearly the same words. What the sources say about the join The Kancheepuram district website says that in an authentic Kanchipuram silk saree the body and the pallu are…

  • Mysore silk: a state factory, a woven barcode and a quarrel about gold

    By Ines Keane Each saree carries a unique ID, a hologram-based design and a barcode woven into the fabric. Wikipedia says so, and says the point is to help identify genuine products of the Karnataka Silk Industries Corporation, or KSIC. A short history Wikipedia says silk weaving in the Mysore region declined after the fall…

  • Thanjavur painting: how a picture is built up, layer by layer

    By Rafe Calder Build it up. That is the logic of a Thanjavur painting, and it begins before any colour touches it. Wikipedia’s account of the steps starts with a plank and a piece of cloth. The steps According to Wikipedia, the steps run as follows. First, canvas is pasted onto a wooden plank with…

  • Chikankari: white thread, white cloth and a pattern that has to be washed away

    By Isla Quinn White on white. A pattern you read with your fingers as much as your eyes. Chikankari is a traditional embroidery style from Lucknow, according to Wikipedia, and its three best-documented stages end in a wash that removes the pattern that guided the stitcher. Making it Two sources set out the stages. Wikipedia…

  • What an Indian GI Tag Does and Doesn’t Say

    By Porter Lang A GI tag is a label with a legal job. Knowing the job helps. Wikipedia says India passed the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act in 1999 and brought it into operation on 15 September 2003, following its WTO obligations. It quotes the TRIPS definition: indications that identify a good…

  • Kolhapuri Chappals: Craft, GI Tag and a Milan Row

    By Ines Keane A sandal with no nails in it. That is one of the first things said about the Kolhapuri chappal. Wikipedia describes these as hand-crafted, braided leather slip-on sandals, locally tanned using vegetable dyes. It says they are traditionally made from buffalo hide and thread, with no nails. It says elaborate pairs can…

  • Dhokra: Wax, Clay and Pour

    By Rafe Calder Dhokra casting is easy to describe and hard to do: wrap a clay core in wax, cover it in clay, melt the wax out and pour metal into the space it left. Wikipedia calls Dhokra non-ferrous metal casting using the lost-wax technique and says it has been used in India for over…

  • The Toy Town Under a Hill Fort: Kondapalli

    By Isla Quinn The toys are carved from a wood the sources call Tella Poniki, and almost everything else about them seems to be held together with paste. Kondapalli sits in the western part of Vijayawada, in Andhra Pradesh, in the Ibrahimpatnam mandal of NTR district. Wikipedia gives a 2011 population of 33,373 on 30…