Book Review – Asia InCH – Encyclopedia of Intangible Cultural Heritage

YOUR VIEWS

THE INDIAN LOOM- A FORGOTTEN EPISODE

Dr Lotika Varadarajan is a passionate and quietly determined scholar whose seminal work on Indian textile and cultural traditions is a must-read for all of us. Her recent talk on the Indian Loom was awe-inspiring but also sad. Awe-inspiring because of the sheer range, diversity and technical virtuosity of Indian looms as well as the different textiles woven on them; sad because so many are already lost to us, while others are being abandoned for the ubiquitous but soulless Jacquard and Tara looms - often with active government encouragement. Sad too to see the depressingly low audience turnout - barely 20 people. A paradigm perhaps of the public's complacent indifference towards India's unique heritage of traditional skill sets. In her introduction, Dr Varadarajan ruefully compared this with the way China, Japan and Europe document and preserve their heritage knowledge systems.Starting with an image of a pair of 3rd Century wooden spindles, Dr Varadarajan took us on an illustrated gallop through the many different looms across India -from the incredibly complex Kashmir kani weaving and their exquisitely penned talim weaving manual (an artwork in itself) to the jaala of Banaras and jamdaani of Bengal and the multiple pedal and shaft loom of Gujarat, and up again to Kinnaur, then the pit and panja looms of Rajasthan and Punjab, and the...