Gold and Silver Foil Work/ Varaq ka Kaam of Uttar Pradesh

This extremely labour intensive craft where silver and gold are beaten continuously for hours to achieve the unbelievably thin foil is a speciality of Lucknow and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. A 10 gram piece of metal is placed between deerskin leaves(farma) and is pounded for 4 hours non-stop to get 180 pieces of varaq. Gold is beaten for 12 hours. Tools such as leather booklet/farma or daftar, stone slab/kasauti ka pathar, blunt blade/phalua, bamboo tweezer/cheep/chimti, wooden board/phatta are used during the crafting process.