Journal

Mashru: the cloth invented to get around a rule
Silk on the outside, cotton against the skin. Mashru means "this is allowed" — a fabric engineered around a religious restriction, once woven in quantity at Mandvi, now down to 15–20 weavers. Read more...
Bandhani: a hundred thousand knots, tied one at a time
Bandhani is not a print. Every dot is a knot tied in the cloth by hand before dyeing — and an elaborate piece can carry a lakh of them. Where it comes from, who makes it, and why your bandanna is named after it. Read more...
The copper bells of Nirona: made without a drop of solder
Nirona's bellmakers cut and fold sheet metal, lock the seams shut without solder, fire it with copper, then tune each bell by hand until it rings the right note. Read more...
Kharad weaving: the Kutch rug down to two families
Camel and goat wool, a loom that packs onto an animal's back, and a rug that lasts a century. Kharad went from ten weaving families in the 1990s to two. Read more...
Ajrakh block print: what the pattern is actually doing
Indigo, madder, sixteen-odd stages of resist and wash, and a village that exists because of an earthquake. A plain explanation of Ajrakh block print in Kutch. Read more...
Lippan art: why the walls of a Kutchi house are set with mirrors
Lippan kaam is mud-and-mirror relief worked onto the inside walls of a bhunga. The mirrors were practical long before they were decorative — here is why. Read more...
Wedding return gifts that don't end up in a cupboard
Quantities, per-guest budgets and lead times for Indian wedding return gifts — and why the ones people keep are almost always the ones they can use at breakfast. Read more...
Corporate Diwali gifting in 2026: dates, budgets and what people actually keep
Diwali falls on 8 November 2026. Here is the order-by date, realistic budget bands per head, and an honest look at which corporate gifts get used and which get regifted. Read more...
Rogan art: the Kutch painting made from boiled castor oil
How Rogan painting is actually made — castor oil boiled for two days, a stylus that never touches the cloth, and a fold that prints the mirror image. From Nirona, Kutch. Read more...
The twelve crafts of Kutch: a short field guide
Ajrakh, Rogan, Lippan, Bandhani and eight more — what each Kutch craft actually is, how it is made, and which village it comes from. Written in Bhuj. Read more...