“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
– Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV)
Prayer is the first thing I do before I start doing any activity.
Though prayer is a totally private activity to me -I could not start the blog postings without a prayer first.
O.K. let's start.
I am a Textile Designer working for the past 25 years with an institution which comes under the Central Government of India whose motto is to serve the Indian Handloom industry and the Weavers. And I have been designing Indian Handloom Textiles, teaching and training aspirants in the field for the past 30 years.
Recently, I started exploring the glorious past of the Indian Textiles seriousely.
(till then my area of interest and concentration was more in designing and the techniques than the history).
I couldnot go back more than two centuries, because of the lack of evidences.
The reason for this is we ( the Indians) did not have the habit of recording our activities for future generations and the British have destroyed not only our culture and the textile traditions but hid or manupulated many truths. ( though some of the authentic evidences, surprisingly we get only from some sincere British textile researchers)
When I went through this, I read lots and lots of rubbish and funny stories about our textiles, like this one........The ancestry of Dhamadka printers originates from , Lav and Kush, the sons of Ram ............rubbish..... this I read in a famous news paper of Tamilnadu. If we write our histories like this, then why the British won't write our histories with wrong facts and exploit us?
I would like to give the world the right picture of our textiles, with the help of all of you who are interested in the glorious histories of Indian Textiles.
I am just presenting here the facts which I collected from the limited sources available to me, and ofcourse, after eleminating the rubbish ones like the above.
We didn't write our exact history .
Shall we try?..........NOW?
I need alll your support dear friends.
Travel continues...............
The reason for this is we ( the Indians) did not have the habit of recording our activities for future generations and the British have destroyed not only our culture and the textile traditions but hid or manupulated many truths. ( though some of the authentic evidences, surprisingly we get only from some sincere British textile researchers)
When I went through this, I read lots and lots of rubbish and funny stories about our textiles, like this one........The ancestry of Dhamadka printers originates from , Lav and Kush, the sons of Ram ............rubbish..... this I read in a famous news paper of Tamilnadu. If we write our histories like this, then why the British won't write our histories with wrong facts and exploit us?
I would like to give the world the right picture of our textiles, with the help of all of you who are interested in the glorious histories of Indian Textiles.
I am just presenting here the facts which I collected from the limited sources available to me, and ofcourse, after eleminating the rubbish ones like the above.
We didn't write our exact history .
Shall we try?..........NOW?
I need alll your support dear friends.
Travel continues...............
A wonderful attempt and I think all of us wanted to do this. But didn't.
ReplyDeleteWe just attended a seminar, 'Traditional Indian textiles in the modern' in Stella maries college, Chennai. We felt that our 'Glorious'past is not known to or doesn't matter to the youngsters, though many want to be 'INDIANS'inside out! We see that the politicians, corrupt govt. officials and the middle men are doing much damage to this part of our culture , the main damage comes from the manufactures, mindless art designers and weavers themselves. I'm sure we can take time and discuss ways to connect the past to the present by understanding the recent past where we were silent observers of the destruction as we are with the decline of Indian Family Values.
- A Z Ranjit ( Tex. Designer, Professor)
Thank you very much for this terrific blog. Lots of detail. I found it because I inherited a cover that is a mystery to me. Someone over the weekend suggested it was "Indian 19th Century" and indeed it does resemble what you are showing here. I would to show.
ReplyDelete