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Filmmaker’s note:

Going through the incredible collection of Indian textiles ranging from 18th century CE onwards, unfolded a story of incredible beauty and tragedy in the same breath. To begin with, the sheer multitude of techniques, materials, motifs and regional variations contained a deeply poetic, rhythmic integrity — an integrity of a particular attitude towards weaving as an art and craft, both philosophical and poetic. I wanted to capture that attitude. Kabir’s poetry became the perfect ruse. He used weaving as a metaphor to comprehend the incomprehensible. He juxtaposed the tools of his trade with the aspirations of the soul, through the intermediary abstraction of poetry. His language mirrored the rhythms of the woven cloth: metres and algorithms. From the ritually pure and mathematically rigorous patolas to the perfections of intuition expressed in phulkaris, there is a sense of order and harmony. In these textiles, there is no distinction between the fabric, it’s utility and ‘ornament’; they are mutually built into each other, sometimes even from the stage of dyeing the yarn. Take for instance the block-prints which can have elaborate figures in action or flora and fauna, perfectly rhythmic in their composition, often infused with poetic alliteration in their placements; for instance, in some cotton rugs there are parrots inside parrots in positive and negative, capsuling within them peacocks and creepers, created for purposes both religious and mundane at the same time. Or take the jajam floor-spreads, which have the pachisi board printed at their centre — form, function and aesthetics all on the same plane. Each buta of the embroidered Kashmiri shawls can pack a verse in threads: peacocks inside peacocks which double up as the ‘buta’ meaning plant/tree/paisley: shlesha or poetic entendres of such richness and multiplicity. The kanthas from Bengal are an orchestra in embroidery, running all over the fabric reinforcing the strength while at the same time embellishing it with ballads and slices-of-life, extinguishing the difference between form and function, between art and design, between the mundane and the transcendental. The same can be said about every other form of embroidery like the Chamba rumals, or every other form of printing or weaving or painting or dyeing or resist.

Editing: The layers of the metaphysical, poetic, utilitarian, ornamental and playful are conceived as one whole, inseparable from each other. This became a cue to tap into the system of poetic metres: chchandas(छन्द), to weave the film, just like a weaver would have used a naksha (नक्शा), or even the grids of their own inspired memory, to create stunning patterns and symbols that were deeply meaningful to them. I created metric montages in my editing, using the various metrical modes of classical Indian poetry. These montages are sewn together with the poetry of Kabir, full of symbolism and insight into the process of weaving, decorating and cloth-making itself. Already in Kabir, there is a sense of tiredness with the weaving of the material cloth, which must have then reached a certain peak in it’s aesthetic as well as economic value.The richly embellished motifs of the textiles can be read better in the light of this grand tradition, where origin myths, rites and rituals of nature and human life are expressed in varying degrees of abstraction, ranging from geometric perfection to absolute playfulness of lines, from deep symbolism to lively observation. But as we look at the textiles down the chronological order, a certain disruption slowly emerges and completely changes the spirit of the Indian cloth. We can see plenty of examples of the painful destruction of the Indian loom by the erstwhile British colonial rule. History has amply recorded this deliberate and wanton destruction, in both spirit and kind. One cannot help but recall writings like those of James Mill stating that the Indian“ loom, with all its appurtenances, is coarse and ill-fashioned, to a degree hardly less surprising than the fineness of the commodity which it is the instrument of producing” and that the very “dexterity in the use of its own imperfect tools is a common attribute of rude society.”

By the 1800’s, weaving that was once a labour of love by most weaver families, who used to grow their own cotton, wind their own silk and sold only the excess after meeting their own needs, had completely been commercialised. New land-laws made sure that weavers abandon subsistence farming, grow only cotton, sell the cotton solely to British mills and give up the unsustainable work of weaving from British yarn. Fully trapped in debt bondage, prohibited from spinning or dyeing their own yarn or auctioning their skills, having no middlemen to argue their case, and not even the permission to grow their own food, the skill of thousands of weavers acquired through centuries was obliterated along with even basic humanity to save their lives.

The film ends on this note, ending the dream of Indian textiles with trademarks and insignia. The distant call of the charkha can be barely discerned.

Note: I wanted to express the process of textile-making in its most essential mode without actually filming it. I could do that by tapping into the system of poetic metrical patterns called Chandas (छन्दस), and using that to weave the film, just as a weaver would have used a grid or a jacquard to create motifs, patterns, and textures. I created metric montages in my editing, using the various metrical modes of classical Indian poetry. To give an example, let’s take a metrical pattern known as Indravajra where the meter is measured in Laghu and Guru, where Laghu is one short vowel denoted by ।, and Guru is one long vowel shown by ऽ (Avagraha). So for this Indravajra pattern i.e. ऽ ऽऽ। ।। ऽ। ।ऽ। ऽऽ, I took a unit of two frames as Laghu and automatically the Guru is four frames, and with this pattern I edited the film. The resulting editing patterns and rhythms were mesmerizing for me, as well as meaningful. These montages are then sewn together by the poetry of Kabir (fifteenth century mystic poet), full of symbolism and insight into the process of weaving, decorating, and cloth-making itself. Already in Kabir, there is a sense of tiredness from the weaving of material cloth, a practice which at the time had reached a certain peak in aesthetic as well as economic value in India. The richly embellished motifs of the textiles can be read better in light of this grand weaving tradition, where origin myths, rites, and rituals of nature and human life are expressed in varying degrees of abstraction, ranging from geometric perfection to absolute playfulness of lines, from deep symbolism to lively observation. This way, each project in turn introduces me to new sources of inspiration.

Notes on the Sound-design:

I wanted the sound-design to take up the narrative built into the textiles, in parallel to the text and images. So there are a lot of imagined diegetic sounds reflecting the immediate environment of the makers of the wonderful textiles, just like Kabir uses everyday words to talk about the deeply mysterious aspects of existence; ambient sounds of the loom, charkha, shepherds, water, boat, etc.

At the same, it would be incomplete without the juxtaposition and revelation of the metaphorical, historical and philosophical aspects. In Indian philosophy words exist at the planes of  para, pashyami, madhyami and vaikhari; the first para being the subtlest form, universalized and beyond the level of the mind, and last vaikhari being the enunciated word with well-assigned meanings, with two intermediary stages. Each word descends from that absolute state to the grossest of spoken language and ascends vice versa.

Could I find an equivalent expression in music that would indicate this ascent of the gross to the subtle and the universal? Just like Kabir’s verses and like the motifs on the textiles, both of which have more universal forms as the bedrock of their conception? I found in the original compositions of the album ‘Viola Torros’ by Catherine Lamb and Johnny Chang the subtlety and austerity that perfectly expresses the archetypal, fountainhead instance that could precede such historical, cultural and philosophical complexity, hybridity and multiplicity. They have based the compositions on their discovery of the mysterious medieval composer Viola Torros, who may have migrated from India to Europe. Her Indian name being Swara, she must have wandered the large tracts of lands between Northern India and Europe, absorbing influences and sublimating them on her journeys, finally arriving at pure notes imminent with a myriad musical modes and possibilities, as beautifully interpreted by Cat and Johnny. (More about the compositions: http://www.anothertimbre.com/violatorros.html ,  https://wandelweiser.de/_viola-torros/index.html)

Later in the film, I bring in the sounds of a disrupting revolution, of fighter planes, hunting and also of music that represents the sophisticated face of the revolution. German-British composer George Frideric Handel’s compositions from the early to mid 18th century correspond chronologically with the earlier pieces in this textile collection. His music reflects the baroque spirit ushered in during the early phases of colonial wealth; both the oratorio and the aria chosen bear the inflections of this novel sophistication alongside sentiments of triumph and pious grandeur. Towards the end are sounds of the bazaar, an original recording from the 1930’s, before the charkha can be heard faintly.

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