As we landed in the remote yet well known soil of Ajrakhpur, two thoughts crossed my mind..
Is this really the place where the exquisite craft of ajrakh was born?
How amazingly yet meticulously the laborious people here have preserved the art and gifted to the world the Ajrakh. I felt I was blessed to have visited this divine soil. The feel and the fragrance of the air was different. Different from the odour of nature and the colors of the earth!
We marched eagerly to Aftab Khatribhai's workshop in all urgency to experience the art of block printing live. What we witnessed was just as we had envisioned. The delicately yet firmly designed wooden blocks. Hundreds of them. The amazing natural colors made from nature🌿🍃
What a spectacle! Lime and gum bestows raw umber, whereas addition of rust to it turns it into burnt sienna! Amazing🤩
After that we observed in silence how meticulously and with precision Yusufbhai applied the blocks onto the stretched fabric after dipping them into the natural dye pads.
Aftabbhai told us that the weather that day wasn't favourable for the drying of the dyed fabric and hence the next process of dipping the block printed cloth into boiling dyesoaked water would not happen. The drizzle that day didn't favour drying of the dyed fabric either.