Unfurling a new life for Chamba rumals
A painstaking effort by an agency has rejuvenated the craftwork
A painstaking effort by an agency has rejuvenated the craftwork
Chamba rumals (handkerchiefs) do not impress from a distance. The cloths are barely 3 sq ft, the figures are small and the embroidered motifs too fine for the eye to transmit that wow signal to the brain from 10 ft away. All that changes dramatically close up.
Within touching distance, the intricacy amazes, the colours impress and the interplay of silken figures on the gossamer weave of the base cloth simply stun. The Delhi Crafts Councils decades-long work to infuse this dying art form with a new contemporary raison detre serves its purpose.
From the 17th century onwards, the noble ladies of the Himalayan royal families embroidered these fine squares or rectangles as coverings for their bridal dowers, or to wrap their holy books. Naturally, only the finest handspun and handwoven cotton or khaddar from Punjab and the thinnest Bengal mulmul (and later khasa or mill cotton or satin) would serve as the base for their fanciful embroideries. These would be done with untwisted, glossy silk thread from Sialkot (now in Pakistan) besides Amritsar and Ludhiana using the dohara tanka or double satin stitch, so that the motif is identical on the obverse and reverse.
This speciality called dorukha embroidery (double faced), came from Kashmir to take root in Basohli and Chamba, but the inspiration was decidedly local: the fabled miniature paintings of the region. Trained miniature artists many of whom had headed for these hill-states as the Mughal empire crumbled drew the outlines in charcoal and suggested colour schemes to the ladies. Krishnas raas-leela was a favoured theme, but besides that the great epics, hunting and wedding scenes and religious tableaux were executed in joyous colours.
Sadly, this delicate do-rukha embroidery-art from the ethereal Shivalik ranges languished for a long time due to the double whammy of loss of feudal patronage and lack of marketing to an increasingly fickle and largely unaware audience in free India. For a while it disastrously took the only path available launching into the mass market of embellished tablecloths, cushion covers and garments, and thus competing not only with other traditional Indian embroideries like chikan and kashida, but a vast amount of cheaply produced machine-made versions.
Thank goodness the late Usha Bhagat (a long time associate of Indira Gandhi) chanced upon the Chamba rumal on a visit to Himachal Pradesh in the late 1970s and on her return to Delhi, prompted the DCC to take up the revival of these kerchiefs. Years of scouring museums and collections for pieces worthy of study and replication led to a set of 16 pieces being produced by retrained women artisans from the state. Retrained, of course, as the craft had already declined to unacceptable standards by then. The 16 pieces amply demonstrated their return to high quality.
The DCCs Chamba rumals have been touring India for the last decade and they are currently on display at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts at New Delhi. Appropriate framing and display will certainly ensure that Delhis culturati will get the full benefit of the Chamba rumals allure. These shows not only creating new markets (starting with commissioned works for a textile museum in Surat) but also inspire younger people to take up the art in Himachal Pradesh. The gaining of GI (Geographical Indication) status has also earned them protection from cheap knock-offs from other regions.
Not that the prices of the pieces reflect the tremendous skill that the artisans need to have to do these two-sided works mounted on frames that show off the fact that nary a thread-end is visible. While the DCCs efforts to revive and re-launch this art form are commendable including the training centre in Himachal a knotty problem remains after the purposes of documentation are served. How will this art form become commercially viable enough for them to survive the next few centuries? The DCCs stand to keep Chamba rumals true to their original purpose instead of succumbing to more saleable alternatives is understandable, and they have had significant success in that.
But all too often, crafts in India are being pushed to the edge of oblivion because of the pressures of making ends meet. The artisan would love nothing better than to create for the joy and satisfaction of it; but there is a mart aspect that cannot be ignored in the long term interest of the art.