Our local guide, Haseeb, cites these four reasons for visiting India, and we knock off three of them. Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat state, was known as the Manchester of the East due to its flourishing textile industry, with over 100 cotton mills at its peak. It’s also famous as the site of the fatal Air India crash last year, a fact I’d conveniently forgotten until after I flew in. 

Here we visit fabulous workshops before continuing to the western part of the state, to the heart of traditional, tribal textile and design work. Every day is a revelation. We embrace a rough routine over the week: drive to a workshop, remove shoes, enter the workshop, drink masala chai, admire genius at work, exit through the gift shop, put on shoes, repeat. We punctuate this with samosa stops. Remember, when eating street snacks in India the mantra is fried food is your friend. 

Asif Shaikh, a micro-miniature embroidery master is internationally revered with work held by major international museums. He has an exhibition in a local gallery, and is kind enough to come and talk about his work. I expect a wizened, hunched old man to appear, but he is a tall, elegant, softly spoken man with a background in design, but a great passion for reviving this work. It’s difficult to explain how intricate and delicate the pieces are, with their thousands and thousands of tiny stitches. One stunning piece is embroidered with peacock feathers and beetle wings. Others are gossamer fine, mere wisps of fabric transformed into art. 

Driving the mean streets of Ahmedabad takes us through dense traffic and densely populated neighbourhoods, streets full of business and trade, life lived on the street, with garbage strewn everywhere.  There’s no discernible infrastructure for rubbish collection and for generations the habit is throw it on the street. 

Haseeb leads us through the back alleys until the pungent aroma of what we learn is rusting metal soaking in jaggery (a type of rough sugar) sees us fumbling for the smelling salts. You’re lucky this blog doesn’t have smellovision, because this tub of liquid is rancid. This mixture becomes the ink for the traditional fabric painting we are about to see – and have a go at doing. Narrow concrete steps lead up to an open room where the windows give out to ragged rooftops. A troupe of monkeys is engaging in a territorial battle, clattering across the rooftops.

Mata Ni Machedi means behind the mother goddess, and these works are traditionally used in shrines. One of the last families engaging in this art form are showing us beautiful paintings all created with natural dyes, and painstakingly drawn layer by layer. The father’s work features in museums worldwide, and in art books nationally and internationally. Using a thin bamboo pen dipped in the ink our artist swiftly knocks out a masterpiece of a goddess to show us how it’s done. Then his daughters, who are carrying on the dynasty, set us up with cloth, pen and ink.  Unfortunately they can’t impart talent, but we do our best.

We know calico as un unbleached woven cotton. In its textile heyday, one of the big mills in Ahmedabad was the Calico Mill, and today this rambling brick building houses the Calico Museum of Textiles, India’s finest collection of historical textiles. It is set in expansive lush grounds, but has that special feeling of crumbling elegance.  While you expect to be wowed by stunning centuries old carpets, clothing, travelling canopied tents and wall hangings, you don’t the guide: a no-nonsense old woman who runs her tour like a headmistress guarding a kingdom of silk. She wastes no time on pleasantries and looks us over with sharp eyes, assessing if we are worthy of entry. Once inside – shoes off, no photos – she sets a brisk pace. We scuttle behind her like slightly anxious ducklings. Her explanations emerge from behind a firmly secured mask, so that interesting information about double ikat and Mughal patronage is muffled.  We nod earnestly whether we hear her or not. It feels safest. Asking a question is a calculated risk: generally it’s ignored – if deemed worthy, it earns a brief, precise answer delivered with the efficiency of a judge’s verdict. If someone lingers too long or drifts toward a display case, she fixes them with a look that could starch cotton at 20 paces.  And don’t even think about touching.  These textiles survived centuries of climate, politics, and neglect. Under her watch, they will survive careless tourists.

In another area, less heavily patrolled by the gestapo, we see dorukha shawls, essentially two shawls in one as the interlocking method of weaving produces a smooth reversible surface.

Cotton has been the lifeblood of Gujarat for hundreds of years, but the industry is facing a myriad of challenges, not least climate change.  The traditional strain, Kala, crops once a year, and when the weather becomes unseasonal that creates problems. After a massive earthquake (7.6 lasting 85 seconds) in 2001 killed over 20,000 people, injured another 166,000 and destroyed about 400,000 buildings in Gujarat and a nearby Pakistani province. The Government injected considerable assistance to support reconstruction and assist small, medium, and cottage industries.  Unfortunately it also introduced and promoted a GM cotton that crops twice a year, but needs more water, chemicals to control insects, and takes more out of the soil so it becomes less fertile after five years. By the way, a cotton picker earns about $1 per 20 kg. If you’re not sure how much that is, go to the supermarket and pick up 20 kg of cotton balls. It’s hot work and the cotton buds have sharp pods.

I haven’t even arrived in Bhuj yet, where we get more dyeing, weaving, and hands on with spinning, block printing and spending money. Looks like another blog coming your way. Here’s some snacks for a break from fabric.