Editor's Note.
Every now and again, it seems as if the grand orchestra of our life dissolves into total discordance, each instrument playing at its own pace. We all dance out of step at times, then pick up the beat again. Because rhythm is inherent.
Rhythm wakes us: it sets our feet tapping, our heads shaking, our bodies moving. The steady beat of the bass sends tremors through our sleeping bones; the ticking of the clock keeps us alert, aware of the fleeting nature of time; the pounding of shoes on a pavement in the clear morning air foreshadows a day of routine.
Read MoreRhythm wakes us: it sets our feet tapping, our heads shaking, our bodies moving. The steady beat of the bass sends tremors through our sleeping bones; the ticking of the clock keeps us alert, aware of the fleeting nature of time; the pounding of shoes on a pavement in the clear morning air foreshadows a day of routine.
By Mayank Mansingh Kaul, Issue 23, Rhythm: Ordering Time.
When you ask me about the rhythm in textiles, I think of he who learnt to know a loom from its sound: As a textile designer and curator, and through his many meanderings in Indian villages in search of the most beautiful fabrics, he learnt to sense the math of a hand-loom, the utterances of its geometry, even from a distance. As the beats of a reed against a shuttle form myriad patterns, I hear the exactitudes of triangular motifs taking shape, a square there, and the perfect circle inlaid in a gossamer jamdani! The incessant noise of hundreds of looms filling a village at dawn, their slow drone in the afternoon, their fading lulls at dusk...
In the Rig-Veda - the first few hymns that echoed in these fabled lands - the warp thread of the loom is the sun and the weft, the moon. The sun is gold, man. The moon is silver, woman. In their continuing repartee, is woven the fabric of our everyday lives. In ancient Greek mythology, Clotho was the youngest of the three fates, spinning the thread of life, and with her sisters Lachesis and Atropo, and their brother Hermes, they together created the alphabet for their people…
Cloth, and the human experience. That single spun yarn - the emergence of something out of nothing - and its journey onwards, as ritual thread, as plaited braid, as finished cloth. As a quilt for the new-born made by the mid-wife giving birth, the phulkari - embroidered with flower motifs - to mark a young girl's first step into womanhood, the gilded odhana of her wedding, and the white sheets which wrap her in death - her disappearance into the ultimate, back into the nothingness she came from...
The incessant throbs of these threads melt into one large universal fabric. As Goddess, she is Katyayani - bathed in red - she appears to start a new day. With the first swara, the singer sets the tone. The dancer ties a knot on his waist. And drums beat their way into the day. In procession, her idol is upheld in a velveteen cushion, fine edges in gold. Under a yellow canopy she roams the streets, shreds of fine chanderi showered on the worshipping multitudes. Silken ropes pull her palanquin, peacock feather fans in her bearers’ hands…
When you ask me about rhythm in textiles, I think of she who sees a white spider every time she embarks on a textile yatra. The Padmashali weavers, whom she often works with, trace their own myth of origin to the spider. A web of protection formed, a sign of good omen, her journey will go well. She carefully inscribes new words on a milk-soaked fabric, the reed sharpened to a perfect slant. With every crescent she starts the next story, never-ending as Draupadi’s sari. And as the full moon approaches, the ink seeps in lighter than other days...
Earlier last century, a short, Indian man in a small loin cloth walked the streets of London in the heights of winter to negotiate freedom for his country. In the long saga of a non-violent revolution, he impressed upon people the selfless momentum of the spin, to make their own yarn, to make their own cloth, to first win the wars within. Those marching armies of people, the unarmed troops of an entire nation - young and old - bound by a fibre.The end to a past! Battles won with cloth! Yards and yards of it...
Cloth, and love. Love for god. The 15th Century Poet-Saint-Weavers's songs of light: "Knowing not Rama, they went to weave / The cloth's length cannot be measured in yards / Should the warp get wet it is of no use / Says Kabir / Renounce the spreading Mirage of him who made this world visible." Discreet love. Against his blue skin, in ochre garb, Krishna appears to meet his beloved Radha in a forest grove at night. Only the intertwined jasmine creepers are witness...
On another day, there are threads, bright purple and fuschia, as kites are lifted to fill the Ahmedabad sky. It is Uttarayan, the Festival of Kites. Millions, countless. Together, they are strings on an imaginary harp of the endless blue sky. Nimble fingers play a concert of epic proportions, the glass-powder coated manja cutting into flesh. The cries of joy, of victory. And as shadows grow longer, a reminder that winter is now far behind. And then, as their shadows diminish, the lanterns tug at the strings and lift, up against the setting sun. The city as Opera!
And so, it goes on. Waves breaking on rocks under raging clouds, she hops through neat rows carved on the sand by long fingers, the folds of her skirt swaying in the wind. She beckons - A drowse in an eye and a twinkle in another, a scarlet hibiscus tucked in her hair, the blush of her wet lips, she removes a silver anklet. She takes the water in, a line of kohl in her eye spreads... Tears and Triumph. The blackness of the night, the lostness of being found. A smile as old as time. And the lilting, slow, emerging tune of a whistle, in the silence after the storm...
Mayank Mansingh Kaul is a delhi-based textile and fashion designer working with contemporary hand-crafts and the Founder-Director of The Design Project India, a not-for-profit organisation seeking to enable archiving projects related to Indian design.
Briana Blasko is a portrait photographer from New York, currently living in India. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, Vogue India, Huffington Post, NPR, CNN, and others.
Also in this issue
Illusion: Seeing Beyond Seeing
Meaning: In Search of Significance.
Melody: A Different Tune
Rhythm: Ordering Time