BEING ‘SALMAN KHAN’
Drive down Mumbai’s thoroughfares, the ones hemmed in by tin shanties and makeshift homes and chances are you’ll spot an intricately hand stitched quilt hung out to air on a rickety balcony or a road divider. It flaps there proclaiming to passers by the talent and industriousness of the lady of the house — for it is almost always women who quilt in a domestic setting, who repurpose tattered bed sheets, clothes that the children have outgrown, and old saris, and transform them into patchworks of art.
Of course, it isn’t only the impoverished who quilt. In many families that are enthusiastic about needlework, it is a domestic art form that’s passed on from generation to generation, from mother to daughter, one that stitches them together as surely as the invisible threads of familial love. Men quilt too though most often as a commercial activity.
You dimly perceived all this, your inner hausfrau sometimes propelled you to rework ruined bits of cloth — never managing, of course, to achieve the brilliance of those sheets flapping in Mumbai’s coastal breeze — but it is Patrick J Finn’s wonderful book Quilts of India: Timeless Textiles that has opened your eyes to this country’s many wonderful quilting traditions.
The myths and motifs that are part of Bengal’s intricate kanthas, the koudis of Karnataka, the resplendent gudris of Rajasthan, the intricate Indo-Portuguese quilts of Goa, quilted palampores,the ledras of Jharkhand, the razais of UP, the reverse appliquéd dharkis and the godris of Gujrat, and Odisha’s appliqués are all studied here. The author makes connections to religion, folklore, the landscape, nature and historic trade routes while also honouring expert craftspeople.
Here’s Shekhawat Hussain Khan, master of the balaposh — the unquilted quilt — who is unsure that his family will continue with the tradition; Here’s Deviben Kodiyatar of Chhaya Porbandar whose patchwork quilts dazzle with their repetitive geometric shapes; and here’s Lakshmi, a Siddi from Yellapur sitting on her bright patchwork koudi.
Finn has crisscrossed the country, going to remote pockets where the sight of a foreigner is probably rare and has
In a small town, illusions can be a code of brotherhood. It’s about everyone looking in one direction, at one thing, even if it is failure, and believing it to be a project, as it were, worth a man’s time and commitment. It is this world of selfconscious masculinity that documentary film-makers Shabani Hassanwalia and Samreen Farouqui explore in their soon-tobe released film, Being Bhaijaan, in which Salman Khan is the trope for exploring the life of Shan Ghosh, a young Salman fan from the small town of Chhindwara in central India.
Hassanwalia and Farouqui were intrigued by the Bollywood actor’s popularity and the mad frenzy his gangster film, Wanted (2009), had aroused in the theatres of small-town India. “Something was happening between Salman and the men of this country that we thought would give a clue to notions of manhood,” says Hassanwalia, “and we wanted to capture what was changing (or not) in this context in India’s small towns.” Their search brought them to Nagpur in Maharashtra and Chhindwara, in Madhya Pradesh, the home of Shan Ghosh, a jeweller-turnedreal-estate investor, who had been modelling his life and ‘look’ on the Bollywood actor, and to his extended gang of Balram come away with information that is as fresh to an Indian as it is to an outsider. Beautifully produced and painstakingly detailed, Quilts of India strikes the balance between being scholarly and accessible; a book to read and to periodically revisit for inspiration.
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In an email interview, Patrick J Finn, spoke about why Indian quilts — so ubiquitous you never really ‘saw’ them before — are so special.
Can you recall the first Indian quilt you saw? What struck you about it?
It was a small kantha with rows of embroidered men on it. I was impressed by the delicacy of the craftsmanship and simplicity of the design.
This book is clearly the result of a lot of travel, research, and hard work. What were the joys and Bhaskar — the former, a boy belonging to a family of wrestlers, and the latter, the son of a baker.
While their admiration for Salman is the common bond, there are other affinities that make them part of the same pack. The innate old-worldism, or conservatism, to which Salman’s films appeal, have a certain pull for the class to which the three fans belong. “In his films, Salman loves his woman, but he is not owned by the relationship. When he loves, or even when he kills in his films, he is detached, and it is this quality that they connect to,” explains Farouqui. “His cinematic persona and his attitudes validate their life.” It is this Salman that Balram, for example, identifies with when he rejects the image of Salman the playboy and makes a virtue of the absence of “kissing scenes” in “Bhai’s films” to explain the romantic vaccum in his own life; or, when Bhaskar talks of ordering a talking door bell beeping Khan’s of putting it together and the challenges?
It was wonderful to meet the quilters across India and get some insights into their lives. Travelling was a bit of a challenge however I was fortunate to have local people and drivers who were very helpful.
Do you think as urbanisation spreads, as more women join the formal work force, this domestic art will cease to exist?
Some quilting genres are already dying out like the balaposh and the more intricate kanthas from Bengal. One of the reasons for writing this book was to document the craft, as done by the women at home. punchlines to bask in borrowed machismo; or when Shan Ghosh says he wants a girl who is like his mother, “someone who has not had a single boyfriend to date”. The same rule, clearly, does not apply to Shan himself, even though, he stays true to his hero even while setting out on a date, which falls flat, not surprisingly, greeting a girl, as he does, with a ‘Jai Salman’ on the phone to cajole her out of her home.
Being Bhaijaan does not underline the All quilts are beautiful, but to many Indians, the quilts from Saurashtra, Gujrat and Rajasthan are the most striking. Which are your personal favourites?
I am partial to the older kanthas of Bengal. The craftsmanship and attention to detail make them intriguing. The quilts of Gujarat are especially beautiful and I am glad that women at home are still making them — they are even passing the tradition down to their daughters.
Do you think quilting in India can be viewed as part of the culture of poverty, that as a society gets more ‘prosperous’ it will cease to value/practise these lovely domestic arts?
I believe that home quilting will always remain a craft in India — although it may change. I have met women who are taking up the political incorrectness of the boys’ sentiments simply because that is not its agenda. What it does is to try to understand what echo blockbuster-manufactured machismo has on the Indian male already struggling with his identity in a globalised world. In this context, the bad-boy image of Salman, combined with the anti-establishment moves in his films, connects with a section of India that has not been part of the ‘Indian growth story.’ As Shan puts it: “I now exercise, have muscles, people call me Junior Salman, I give performances. What craft the same way it is done in the west where it is not so much a “culture of poverty” but as a personal expression of creativity.
Are you planning another book that looks at quilts from states you haven’t included?
I do not have plans to do another book at the moment. Although there are states I did not cover, my current research did not warrant further fieldwork. That said, should other genres emerge, I would be open to further investigation and a second volume.
What sets Indian quilts apart?
Quilts are a basic part of the material Indian culture with a long history.
They exemplify the continuity intrinsic in the Indian way of life. Perhaps it is the variety of quilting genres that set them apart from quilts in other parts of the world. would I have been, had I not been a fan of Salman? Nothing! My stomach would have been out.” Being a Salman fan, for Shan, therefore, means that he can count on social respectability, that he will have a certain cachet in his circle, it means being part of a larger story. To catch a promo of ‘Being Bhaijaan’ log onto hindustantimes.com/salmanfans