Rajasthan – Page 2 – Judy and Valerie On the Road

Jaisalmer Camel Safari

Our two camels were called Bob Marley and Fidel Castro! When camels sit down they’re extremely neat, tucking their back legs underneath them as if they’re kneeling. When they get up and lie down you have to hold on and lean back as far as you can otherwise you’d topple over.

Their movements on the sand felt surprisingly undulating and we could understand why camels are called the ‘ships of the desert’. Even though there were a lot of other people also up on the dunes it was still possible to get a sense of the beauty of the desert. It’s made me want to see Lawrence of Arabia again

Jaisalmer Camel Tattoo

When we were in Bikaner our guide told us that camels are very good dancers. We were fairly astonished and when at the Desert Festival I said this to our guide he said that this happened in the ‘Camel Tattoo’, so of course we had to go.

Do you remember the Royal Tournament with the horses galloping across the arena just missing each other? Well picture that in a huge outdoor arena in the desert with the blazing sun, with a brass band, on camels. The Border Security Force and their camels all dressed in their finery. They were fantastic!

Jaisalmer Desert Festival

The annual Desert Festival started with a wonderfully vibrant parade through the town. Everyone decked out in beautiful colours, men with amazing moustaches and orange turbans, girls with exquisitely embroidered dresses, dancers in red flowing gowns and camels looking extremely fine

Block printing workshop in Barmer

On the way to Jaisalmer we stopped at Barmer to attend a block printing workshop run for us by a small textile printing company called Panihari.

This was very exciting as one of the workers first showed us the process and then we were each given a metre of cloth and helped to create our own prints. We each just used two different blocks one for the edge and one for the centre, but they would use several wooden blocks to create a detailed pattern with several colours (see the Anokhi post). The solution we pressed onto the material was made of lime and gum. This will act as a ‘resist’ so that when the material is dyed the patterned sections will remain white.

They will dye our prints with indigo and send them on to us in Jaisalmer … watch this space.

Hand weaving in Raisar

On our way to Bikaner we stopped in a village and went into the home of a family who generate their own wool, yarn and fabrics.

They take the wool from their sheep and camels, spin this into yarn, dye it, weave it on hand looms creating fabrics, and then create products such as shawls. They then sell these to the local cooperative who are then able to sell it on.

Evidently Bikaner is the largest wool producing area in Asia.

They also made us some millet roti which are eaten there with s small curry- it was delicious.

Cinema in Jaipur

Went to the fantastic art-deco Raj Mandir cinema in Jaipur. The outside looks rather like a wedding cake and foyer inside is stunning. It was a great experience, seeing the latest Bollywood hit Tiger Zinder Hai on a huge screen. It didn’t matter that we couldn’t understand Hindi, we could work out what was going on. Valerie particularly liked the scene where our hero single handedly fights off a pack of wolves in the snowy Swiss Alps (you’ll just have to see the film).

But what was extraordinary was that I was able to buy the tickets on-line on my phone, and paid for them using my Amazon account. I got a mobile ticket on my phone which I just showed at the door!

Block printing – Bagru village

We visited a small block printing factory in a village called Bagru near Jaipur where they use a technique called Mud Resist.

Initially they create a paste made of of earth, water, wheat powder and gum A wooden block with a carved pattern is pressed into the paste and then onto white cotton material. Then sawdust is sprinkled on the top and print is left to dry.

The fabric is then dyed in cold dye- first in a solution to enable the dye to take, and then into the dye itself. In this case the dye was made from scraps of iron producing a grey colour.

The process can then be repeated pressing the mud resist solution onto the parts of the fabric which are to be kept at that dyed colour. The whole dying process is repeated as many times as required. Eventually the resist solution is washed off and the printed fabric remains

and of course they had a shop, and of course there was a natural progression

Anokhi museum of hand printing

You may have heard of Anokhi shops where they sell beautiful clothes using traditional Indian fabrics for contemporary designs. Well in Jaipur Anokhi have a very interesting museum of hand printing. It’s housed in a beautifully restored haveli and takes you through different printing techniques. They have a collection of fabrics and also have some people giving demonstrations of techniques. One man was doing block printing whilst another was making the wooden blocks used.