Part 2: Bandhani

Bandhani is a textile that closely intertwines with the everyday in India, whether it is a colourful bandhani dupatta hanging out to dry, a woman tucking in the pallu of a bandhani sari or as a much explored DIY technique. In the markets, bandhani fabric is unfurled only when someone buys it, to prove that the fabric is tied and dyed. And thus, the unfurling of the fabric today becomes a marker of originality.

In North-West India, Punjab, Gujarat, Orissa and regions of Southern India, the tie and dye is more evident because the circles or square shapes show us that the threads wrapped before dyeing create impressions that we see as a pattern or a design.

The function of a tie and dyed cloth changes based on the region of India it is found in. For instance, a bandhani sari from Rajasthan could be different from an odhani worn in Kutch or a turban worn in a court of North India. A single sari can have more than 5000 knots. The pink knots on the sari above are extremely fine, with hundreds of swirling vines and flowers which are connected to each other. The edges of the sari are dyed in pink with more bandhani floral and vine patterns.

What is the significance of wearing these headcovers? Odhanis or Odhanas are headcovers or shawls worn by women and dyed by members of the Khatri, Memons or Sonaras communities of Gujarat. Brides would use them to cover their faces during the wedding ceremony before they would reveal themselves by unveiling the odhani. An odhani tie-dyed in red and green like seen above, with a stitch and gold trim running down the center, became an important aspect of a woman's married life. Many rituals around the veiling or unveiling of an odhani revolved around a woman's gender. If and when she became a widow, she had to give up the odhani which indicated that the keepers of an odhani were almost always married women.

The above red bandhani has fine dots which form animated patterns like hopping rabbits, dancing pheasants called kukkat, flying birds called chidiya and sprinting tigers called sinh. If you look closely, do you see human figures that look like “dancing dolls” wearing odhanis with their arms up in the air? Or, are these perhaps shepherds surrounded by animals? Below the figures you can see the elephant, tiger and flower pattern and a pan bel design which resembles the paan leaf climber plant. The bandhani could have been made by folding it into a half so that the motifs form a mirror image of each other. With two leafy tree patterns as pillars, all the animals and dolls look like they are moving towards a flowering lotus.

In the sixteenth century, Saurashtrian weavers from Western India migrated to Madurai in Tamil Nadu, bringing with them the tie-dye weaving practice of sungudi. The company painting, possibly from Tamil Nadu, depicts three female attendants surrounding Krishna, one of whom is draped in a dark blue sungudi sari and an orange blouse. The white dotted patterns in clusters of three seen on her sari are a common motif and such patterns were perhaps inspired by sights of stars in the sky.

In the photograph, the two women who are dressing the central woman are wearing printed blouses and skirts. The floral print and vertical stripes are more evident on the blouses; however, their skirts have patterns of leheriya that are more prominent. The woman at the back who is looking sideways could be wearing a tie-dyed leheriya. Notice the interruptions and disruptions of pattern. The unpredictability of how the tie-dye will turn out differentiates it from a printed fabric of the same pattern. The black and white contrast of the photograph elevates the textile patterns. The lines that are usually blurred in a tie-dyed leheriya are more prominent in a block printed one.

The length of saris and headcovers determine how they are draped around the body. The woman in the above photograph wears a red and green headcover with a different bandhani pattern of finer dots and shapes of squares. This red and green cloth extends to her feet; however, we also see the yellow fabric from a sari or a skirt next to it. Is the green and red cloth a headcover? Is it a half sari? Or is it just a border or pallu of a sari not more than four metres long?

The cholis that you see above wouldn't always be visible when a woman wore it. We would see a glimpse of a sleeve as the odhani covers the other sleeve and chest. Notice the pink cuffs on the sleeves which could have been taken from a sari's border? The lining and center of the blouse is a red and yellow bandhani and the adjustable loose strings and tie-cords are made with a leheriya cloth. The blouse is torn at the center and fragile in the corners, which indicates that it was originally made for a particular woman, but then perhaps passed on to a younger woman in the family with a different body type. Women would usually wear a choli with a skirt or a sari and an odhani. Stitched garments, like this blouse, are often made from repurposed old saris, and become a patchwork of formerly worn textiles of the family or community.

A tie-dyed cotton turban cloth for men from Rajasthan which was made in the 2Oth century.

The long cloth was made to be worn as a turban and is also called a pagadi or a safaa depending on the occasion that the cloth was draped around the head. The pink and yellow diagonals with little blue boxes make them either a leheriya or a mothra pattern. As a leheriya pattern, it's possible that this turban was draped by a king as an everyday turban cloth. A covered head was a sign of respect in courts and held a lot of cultural significance. The little blue geometric boxes appear like uncut gemstones.

Maharana Bhupal Singh was known for wearing a mewari leheriya as part of his everyday wardrobe. In most of the other painted photographs, we see him wearing a bright pink leheriya but in the portrait above, the artist has depicted him in subtle colours of blue, yellow and green. The boxes or squares within the leheriya indicate its resemblance to the turban cloth above.

A tie-dyed leheriya pagadi or safaa which was made in the 20th century possibly in the form of a mothra design pattern.

At first glance, the leheriya turban looks like a woven check pattern. The bright pink fabric extends a few inches to waves in yellow and green before the waves begin to overlap. Some rare leheriyas were tie-dyed in two different directions forming parallel waves, like, in this leheriya where the pink waves or lehrein intersect and form small boxes.