Fiber alert!  This is yet another edition dedicated to weaving, and it'll likely be my last post from India as we leave Saturday.

The smaller weaving enterprise in Aurangabad provided some interesting insights.  They have a number of old, unused Jacquard looms from Yorkshire and Lancashire, a veritable museum.

At last, I encountered some warping equipment though it contributes only a little to my understanding of their warping process.  The first image is the reel on which there is a short reed (toward the bottom left).  The second image is a drum with another reed and device that travels the width of the drum to wind on in sections.  I can guess the operation, but I wouldn't place money on it, and have no clue as to how the warp gets from the large drum to the looms' warp beams which have significantly smaller circumferences. All this equipment was in a side courtyard open to the elements.  The rustic nature and location of the warping equipment belies the incredibly fine smooth warps produced on it:





Inside the facility are three looms are in operation:  a 4-shaft counter balance on which saree cloth is being woven with a cartoon and weft inlay as described in my earlier blog;  a Jacquard loom with punch cards for an intricate design; and a draw loom.  I was able to get more detailed pictures of the latter, but I guess I'm drawloom challenged when it comes to understanding the pattern lifts.

This loom is a 2-harness system.  You can see 7 of the eight lams for the 4-shafts of the ground, and either 40 or 80 cords that control the pattern shafts of the second harness.  The cords are tied to a side support:



The patterning is controlled by vertical strings which are pulled to the side (middle and right):



You can just see the strings used for patterning at the upper part of the next picture (the warp is being repaired) and another view of the horizontal cords that represent the pattern shafts:



Note that the cloth beam is not round.  At the Paithan weaving center the beams were 4-sided.   In fact I never saw a round cloth beam on any of the looms.  The man repairing the warp popped the beam out for me to see the underside of the fabric:



And the portrait today is of the brother of Simran's friend whose family owns this weaving enterprise, and has done for generations. He is the one who showed me the entire operation.  He's smiling either at something related to the phone call, or my antics with Giles portrayed yesterday.  I prefer to believe it's the former. 



As this is likely to be the last blog from India, I need to mention the overwhelmingly wonderful hospitality of Simran's relatives and friends.  I have lots of fantastic photos of them, and just as soon as Simran has given me correct names and relationships I'll post them to the gallery.

Here are some images from our Sunday trip to the Ellora caves.  This is from cave #16 a Hindu cave.  Photographs, at least with my camera, are less than adequate when it comes to depicting the immense undertaking these caves represent:



And people sit and wait while their companions poke around.  Some shooting photos with meagre lenses:







Before we left the area we went up to hill station and watched the sunset:



Today's blog ends with a portrait of Simran and Jenny, one year after the wedding shown in the earlier blog.

This is the second mish-mash of images.  Tuesday was spent at another weaving enterprise, this owned by a friend of Simran. I'll be processing those photographs and uploading them later.   Meanwhile here are images of earlier times in the trip.

I'll start with something sweet--in Goa the frangipani was in full bloom:



Last week, Hank and I spent a couple of days exploring New Delhi (languidly exploring, that is).  In the 108 degree heat we opted for places that would be air-conditioned.  The National Museum allowed photography, but the National Gallery of Modern Art didn't.  Still I have so far I've taken over 900 photographs .  I'll post a select few now and the remaining decent ones in a photo gallery once I return.

This dancer is from 2700-2000 BC.  I love that defiant expression:



The next image is from roughly the same period, 2600--2000 BC.  It's described as an "object" but it's got to be a spindle, as the textile folk know.  It could be a toy as it is very small, perhaps 4-5 inch in length:



For documentation I've adopted a lazy-woman's system.  I photograph the object  followd by the signage associated with the object.  I don't pay much attention to the quality of the latter, which means for the next photograph I've clipped off some pertinent information.  It is of Kudera, the god of wealth, from West Bengal but I can't tell you the date:



Remember the women construction workers carrying bricks on their heads?  Well, one asked me to take a photograph of her husband/boyfriend (I couldn't understand) and I don't know which one he is in the following photograph.  But yuck there one is picking his nose, so I didn't upload the photograph to the blog.  I've had second thoughts given the industriousness of the woman, and the men totally amused by me, this is an image that needs wider airing.  (In fairness, there were a lot of men working at the site, too, just not this bunch nor this particular woman's partner.):



Another group of men were in a coffee shop next to the steel door where today's portrait was taken.  They too were laughing out loud at my antics.  I think I really put a lift in their day.  Here's "Giles" a resident of Aurangabad's streets:



And the final picture of the traveling party (it took a long time to get this one edited--lots to work with <g>:

I type the blogs, organize the pictures, and stack them up until I can get online.  It's a feast or famine situation--no blogs for a few days, followed by a glut.

Monday we went to a tailor with the fabric we purchased in Amritsar.  For one tunic, the fabric itself dictated the neckline, for the other I got to choose the neckline, and for both I chose the sleeve length (short, but long enough to cover the bat wings).  The tailor measured us while two young men worked diligently on treadle machines no less.  Two tunics, matching pants, and two shirts for Hank, will be delivered before we leave for Mumbai on Wednesday.  How's that for industrious?

And how's this?


 

At street level, they were just beginning to notice me.  By the time they'd mounted the steps and hauled their loads to the top of the house, they knew what I was up to.  I don't blame them should they think that if I'd don one of those donut things on my head and haul bricks up a building all day long, weight problems would be a thing of the past, and my balance and posture would be superb.  Some of them wore thongs on their feet, others were barefoot skipping across the gravel.   I was duly impressed and in awe. 

 

Another worker hauled a different building component in a metal dish though I never figured out what:

 

Their lunch pails sit on a sill and the photo depicts the solid brick and concrete construction--no wood is used except for temporary supports.  For finishing the brick is covered in a concrete stucco, and lots of tile, marble and granite are used for floors, kitchens, and bathrooms.


 

Women working continued as a theme when we left the construction site and returned to Simran's parents' house.  Two young women were working on Rashi's hands and lower arms.  The tool of their trade:
 


Many of the women are having Mehndi decorations applied to their arms (and feet if they choose and are married) for the anniversary celebration on Friday in Mumbai.  I chose to have my left hand decorated, thinking, wrongly, that it would be useful to have my right hand unadorned so that I could shower and shampoo with ease.  Well, it turns out I could have done tht anyway! Here's the start of the process:



The henna is mixed with an oil (eucalyptus) and is quite thick.  It is squeezed out of the carrot bags and applied similarly to icing a cake.

Hand complete:



After it is dry the pigment flakes off.  The design appears a light brown which darkens over the next few hours.  Here's the front of my hand this morning.  The design on the back of my hand is slightly different, with my finger nails appearing very white:



Women's work.

After a magnificent lunch at the house of some friends of Harvinder and Dimple, we went to the Ellora Caves.  I have yet to process the photos however, so this blog is a continuation of Saturday's.

Kam Khab is one name given to the lavish cloth woven from silk and gold I described yesterday.  Himroo, another Aurangabad specialty, was developed as a cheaper alternative to Kam Khab.  It is woven from cotton and silver, and most Himroo shawls and sarees are produced on power looms.  However, there are a ew enterprises that demonstrate the traditional methods. 

The looms are in pits and the weaver sits at the edge of the pit.  The light, the light he weaves by, unfortunately obliterates the backside of the cloth--the side he sees as he weaves.  Tempted though I was, I could hardly ask him to turn it off.

The side he sees consists entirely of packed weft floats.  He kindly popped out the cloth beam, unrolled the fabric, and held the beam up to show us the pattern side.  Again, there are 4-shafts for the ground, but it was far too dark for me to see what controlled the pattern shafts.  It was a repetitive draw of some detail.  Look toward the left side of the loom and you'll see the wonderful devices hanging there which hold weft yarns.  The second picture shows them in more detail:
 




Over in another dark corner a younger man was weaving a traditional cloth with inlaid borders.  Most of the pictures I took are abysmal, but the one of the actual cloth is light enough and if you look closely you can see the cartoon under the pattern area.  Check out that temple!  BTW, I noticed that with some other looms the temple is on the underside of the fabric hidden from view unless you catch the teeth.  I wish I'd asked if they always use a temple:



Then, in yet an even darker corner, we happened on a Jacquard loom, complete with mounted cards.  This loom did not appear to be in use:




Tonight we hope to go to another weaving enterprise where I'll ask all the questions I forgot to ask previously.  Stay tuned.

Back online after a hotel generated WiFi problem. 

After an early morning flight on Saturday from Delhi, we (Hank and I) arrived in Aurangabad with sufficient time for a special event—a  weaving event.

About 35 miles away is the Trimourti Paithani Centre, an enterprise that’s part of the Maharashtra Small Scale Industries Development Corporation.  Their handout describes how some of Paithan’s prosperous past remains “not handed down by kings and princes, nor even by learned men, but by patient weavers endlessly by their humble looms—a saree called Paithani—a poem in silk and gold.”

A minimum of 1½ months is required to weave a traditional Paithani, and 4 to 6 months for a brocade Paithani—at a rate of 3 to 6 inches per hour.  The fabrics are still in vogue and are a symbol of prestige.  The cloth is durable and is often handed down as an “heirloom from mother to daughter for several generations.  Even when the silk finally wears, the border and pallav of a true Paithani may be burned to leave a ball of solid silver—the parting gift of a gracious saree.”

We remove our shoes as we enter the shop which has a raised area containing thin mattresses covered in muslin where prospective purchasers sit cross-legged and stare in awe as the fabric is thrown out for inspection.

The piles of sarees range from inexpensive embroidered cotton, which sell for $10, through every quality and price range to the luxurious ones of silk and silver or gold, selling for upward of $14,000 each.

We were greeted by the Production Manager, A. R. Rakshi, who is fluent in both English and Weaving!  He led us into what in Bradford we’d call the “weaving shed” where there are 118 handlooms on which 80-90 weavers are weaving 350-400 Paithani a year.  The looms are equipped with 4 ground shafts and a draw system that appears to be operated by a mechanical dobby:

 

 


The area is clean and light with good ventilation and spacious bathrooms, all of which Mr. Rakshe is justifiably proud.

The weavers labor over intricate designs on each selvage using supplementary wefts.  Some of the bobbins are constructed from rolled cloth.  A cartoon is placed under the border as a guide for the weaver:

 

The body of a traditional Paithani is plain, but nowadays it is not unusual for the weaver to “bespangle the body with tiny motifs called ‘butties’” which are in shapes of coins, stars, flowers, leaves, peacocks, parrots, etc.  These motifs are also supplementary weft meticulously placed and hand inserted.

One weaver was working on a design that spanned across the entire warp--the border.  I think this is the end edge of the saree and may be called the “Pallu.”:

Behind the weaver you can see someone working with a warping board.  I believe she was measuring weft, but I really couldn’t discern the process.  The warps were all entirely of extremely fine silk--and no, I have no idea where the silk comes from though I did ask and did attempt to buy some.  I suspect the winding and beaming of the warp was accomplished in another part of the facility:

After a decent time to allow me to interrupt a number of weavers, Mr. Rakshe took us into a new room, to show us his pride and joy (and my envy)--100 brand new Jacquard looms.  The looms were all warped, but weaving had not yet commenced.  In fact I couldn’t see any mechanism for controlling the hooks.  I’m pretty sure they’ll be using punch cards:





This represents handweaving at its very finest and I hope this blog entry puts to rest the concept of "cheap foreign imports" spoused by some on weaving lists.  These weavers are every bit as accomplished and dedicated as any handweaver I've encountered.  Their work is stunning!

 

 

The blog for our last two days in New Delhi is a mish mash of images that didn't seem to fit in earlier blogs.  Tomorrow we're off early to Aurangabad.

Most of the pictures are of animals which have crossed our paths, or, more likely, whose paths we've crossed.  On the beach in Goa there were a lot of dogs.  One bitch was surrounded by more than half a dozen males who were snapping at each other, while two others were more wise and took shelter from both sun and suitors:



A few seconds later a sea cow (Hank's pun) approached.  She refused to stay still for a portrait.  This is the best I could do:



Tuesday night we met up with Will Kitchen of the Mpls/St. Paul basketball group.  Where did we meet?  Where else could we meet but at a sports bar dedicated to cricket?  Will works for IBM in Delhi.  He and wife Maggie have been here for 2 years and really love it:


 

Also on Tuesday, our driver took us by a special tree to show us the bats.  Great big, flying fox type bats, resting in the noon day sun.  The image shows two: one with the upside down face in the lower right, the other all wrapped up in itself--bat of the me generation:



On Thursday a different driver and different mammals.  These live in a sort of wood/dump.  Lots of trash, equals lots of food, and I took lots of photos. I like the mother and child theme, and I particularly like the mango juice around the mother's lips.  Yes, we bought mangos and water melons for them, but it didn't stop them hissing at us once they'd grabbed a piece.  Not lowly groveling monkeys these, but assertive, proud monkeys with a sense of entitlement:

:

And now for an image a lot easier on the eyes.  This is Amanda, Jenny's sister:



Amanda would be the final member of the traveling group.  But we can't forget Amanda's husband Kevin, stationed in Afghanistan, who is with us in spirit and by proxy at every event:

It has been photographed, written about, and eulogized for so many centuries by so many people, that you think it couldn't possibly live up to all the hype, but it does!  It is absolutely stunning, totally breathtakingly awesome.

A little chutzpah and a lot of luck contributed to these pictures.  The area where we entered had been claimed by Indian photographers.  They posed their captured tourists on the seat central to this image.  There was no way anyone else could take a shot without a hapless stranger in it.  But, without realizing what was going on, I positioned myself on the other side of the seat.  They were getting my rear end in their souvenir portraits.  So, they backed off and let me get off these two:



Who would have thought this scene could be improved upon?  Ok it's debatable:



To continue with the theme of handsome headshots.  To get from the parking lot to the main site there is all manner of transportation being offered: bicycle rickshaw, autorickshaw, and camel:



Who is looking with disdain at the camel driver, hitting him on the rear with a puny stick.  Through a series of maneouvers, where his younger assistant jumped on and off the cart rails as the cart moved, he exchanged his stick for something a little longer:




There's a mother lode of good people watching here, as some of my earlier posted portraits depict.  But it's not always easy!  If one approaches someone to take their picture, one gets a smile, and a pose.  Using the zoom from a distance and thanking them later is a more productive approach, but doesn't always provide the best quality.  This man and his companion walked incredibly quickly hence the "not-quite-in-focus" qualtiy.  His companion's face was wonderful, but I only got half of it:





As charming as the camel driver, his assistant, and the camel itself were, the ride was short--really, really short.  And even though the temperature was well above 100 degress, four of us chose to walk it on the return trip.  On the other side of the road, two women displayed the extremes of womanly burden--high heels and hauling food:



Hank and I are still in New Delhi, but the rest of the party is in Aurangabad.  We'll join up with them on Saturday.  The travelers group portrait today is of Rashmeet (Rashi) Simran's sister:

Monday in New Delhi, after shopping, we spent some time at the India Gate, one of the largest War Memorials in India.  It honors the 90,000 Indian soldiers who lost their lives fighting for the "British Indian Army" in both WWI and the Afghan Wars:



There are more pictures to be processed from our drives around New Delhi, but there are many more not taken.  It is unspeakably hot right now and taking pictures from speeding air-conditioned cars is a fruitless exercise.

Most of the remainder of today's blog is for the fiber enthusiasts, but first here's today's portrait.  This is Cali, Jenny's sister:




I wrote about the fabric store experience.  Here's the fabric.  This piece is about 2 1/2 yards of fabric with an overall woven pattern.  The first yard or so is embellished .  All ready to make up into a long tunic.  I folded the piece a little higher than the neckline embellishment.  Even I can figure out how to sew this, but I won't.  I'm having this and the following piece sewn up in Aurangabad where we go on Saturday.  I love the concept of the surface design being added before the fabric is cut.

On a line with the neckline, perhaps 10" or so in either side (I'm not unpacking that darn thing one more time and I forgot to measure <grrr> is the embellishment for the sleeve.  The rest of the fabric is not embellished at all, ergo the back will be plain.



One sleeve selvedge laying on the second piece of fabric from which the pants will be made:



Reverse side, showing cloth construction and loops.  Fabric is not, and does not need to be, reversible.  The tunics themselves are very simple in design and very comfortable.  They are worn with pants and a coordinating chiffon scarf.  The scarf that came with this material is plain, but they are often quite ornate.



The purple fabric is about 4 1/2 yards long.  The image is of the bottom of the front.  The same floral design covers the rest of the front.  I guess this means I get to choose a neckline treatment.  You can see the simple bottom edge.  Some fabric sets had much more ornate bottom edges.  The back of the tunic will be plain, I don't think there's any special sleeve treatment (packed it away).  The remaining 2 yards of fabric are for the pants. 

 

This image is of the coordinating and more elaborate scarf:

 

Finally, here's a simple cotton top which I wore with jeans.  (Indian women wear both simple and elaborate outfits regardless of the occasion--makes a great feast for the eyes on a daily basis.)  I couldn't figure out what the flaps of fabric were!  They are sewn into three outfits I bought .  Either in the back of the neck or the side seam, where a label is often located.  Duh, they're sleeves! One can choose whether to have them sewn in, or not.



(For inquiring minds, here's the purchasing math:  4 ready made tunics, 3 pairs of pants, 6 independent scarves, fabric for 2 3-piece outfits and fabric for 2 men's shirts to be sewn in Aurangabad, 2 women's tunics being altered and 7 men's shirts being tailored as I type.)

Early Sunday morning, Simran, Jenny, and Hank arose early and went to morning prayers.  The rest of us, along with a few thousand others, went later. The line was long, hot, and packed, but worth it.  It's impossible to describe the richness of the inlaid marble, painted plaster, and ceremonial artifacts.  Photography is not allowed, of course, so I'll just have to hunt up some souvenir images.

I really wanted a photograph of one particular outfit.  Traditional garb in a deep blue/purple, an elaborate turban braided with a deep orange colored scarf, and a sash of the same orange.  At last one such dressed man was standing isolated.  Just as I took the shot, up popped a face.  Look closely and you'll see the orange part of the man's turban on top of her head:



Another group of boys cornered Tommy, who day-by-day attains the status of a rock star.  I promised to post the photograph:

Sunday lunch at the Golden Temple, along with about 2,000 others.  As people line up (well in India, I guess, congregate would be a better word) each is provided with a metal divided dish, a metal cup, and a spoon.  As soon as the hall is cleared and mopped down from the previous sitting, the doors open and we take our places.  We sit cross-legged on the floor, in long rows on equally long mats, flush with another row of diners, back to back, our trays in front of us.  I don’t know what the term is for the people who distribute the food, but they walk up and down the aisles with baskets of rotis, or pails of dhal or vegetable curry, ladling the food onto our dishes, and filling our bowls with water.  They keep handing us rotis and ladling food until we sign that we’re sated.

As we are ushered out, the room is prepared for the next group.  Water is thrown on the marble floors, and someone with a device that’s like a mammoth squeegee, pushes the water, food spills, etc., to the sides, mats are replaced, and the doors are opened for the next 2,000 diners.  24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and all provided free.

On our way to the train station to leave Amritsar we stopped at a material shop.  As we entered we removed our shoes and stepped onto what seemed like a thin mattress covered in muslin.  We sat in a circle as the material was thrown on the floor.  Each package contained three coordinated pieces of fabric: one for pants, one for a top, a third for a scarf.  Here we are, trying to pick from an incredible range, followed by a picture of Harvinder negotiating the price.  The material is complete with appropriate embellishments for completion of the garment.  I'll upload a detail in another blog.
 


 

We split into two parties, 6 to each autorickshaw, and Hank and I were separated which allowed me to get this prize shot:



Finally, in the ongoing documentation of our party, here's a picture of Simran's sister, Nons: