A long but quite fruitful day.
I woke at six to take a cold Delhi morning rickshaw ride to the bus stop. My rickshaw driver Vinod is wrapped up and around with a large Khaki blanket covering his body as well as his head. We arrive at the stop have a cup of tea together and I jump on the bus.
Seven hours later, it is considerably warmer maybe 27/28 and I am in a small town maybe 100 miles north of Jaipur. Here I have contacts and a few friends.
Currently I am on the rooftop of my guesthouse in the town drinking chai and lassi and eating fruit. It’s a little chilly but very much bearable in a long sleeved shirt buttoned to the top. Traditional music is being played just down the road which is floating up to me here, there are hand drums, a sitar and a little singing, all very pleasant and when the music dies down between sets, you can hear the crickets. I think it is a wedding party.
Immediately on arrival today and I am on the search for a lovely antique material once made predominantly in Afghanistan and Pakistan but also in the very west of India in the Thar desert. This material is what I want my newest product – bags, to be made from. These bags are not to be mixed up with the other cotton printed bags referred to yesterday. I have seen these bags made before but thought it better to go to the origins to find the best stuff I can afford and have them made just right.
I find the material I am after, it’s expensive, but you can see the quality and originality. The material was traditionally made to make dresses and often wedding dresses for the nomadic desert tribes and particular muslim families. It is all handmade and you get what you pay for, there are lots of different styles and qualities the roughest looks a little or a lot hippy whilst the very well looked after cuts of material look fantastic, very much bohemian chic and a definite cut away from the hippy. I cannot wait to start designing (that’s quite an elaborate word).
I shall also have a look elsewhere in a few days time skirting around larger towns like Bikaneer and Jodphur to see if the material can be found there as I have been told.
Goodnight from India.
Dominic
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