From the Uzbeki Suzani, flower-strewn cloths from Central Asia to Varanasi’s Baluchari saree, Jasleen Dhamija offers her astounding textile collection for auction next week
Jasleen Dhamija at Saffronart in Prabhadevi. Pic/Atul Kamble
Every year, after monsoon, textile historian, Jasleen Dhamija ensures that she pulls out her entire collection of handwoven, silk shawls, Zoroastrian ikat sofreh (tablecloth), embroidered Pashmina robes and Chamba rumals from the boxes, airs them and stacks them back with dried tobacco and neem leaves. “When I would be travelling, I’d always come back to do this,” she says like a doting mother, returning to check on her children.
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A handwoven Pashmina long shawl from Kashmir
This has been a ritual for the last 60 years. But, 7 months ago, when she unearthed her stack, it was to say a final goodbye. The Delhi-based crafts exponent and former UN worker, is auctioning her entire textile collection acquired during her travels to Iran, Central Asia and India, at the Saffronart auction next week. Each lot on auction is presented with text by Dr Monisha Ahmed, a textile historian and anthropologist.
The Shah Nama Kalamkari from Isfahan, Iran
So on a Thursday evening, when we meet Dhamija at Saffronart in Prabhadevi, the 83-year-old is unable to take her eyes off the handcrafted textiles that adorn the walls. “I feel like they’ve come alive,” she says about the 82 rare pieces on display. An elaborately patterned Kashmiri long shawl with detailing from the ceiling in the Shalimar (R8,00,000 to R10,00,000) hangs on the adjacent wall. “I remember it took me a year to pay for this shawl. Back then, I was a government employee working for All India Handicrafts, and wasn’t paid handsomely. And, because the people selling them became friends, they gave it to me on installments,” recalls Dhamija, who was born in Lahore in 1933. While some have been purchased at bazaars, others directly off the weaver’s loom, and some are the first pieces from independent India’s revival efforts.
Lot 42 -Bagh Kabutri - West Punjab (Now Pakistan), Circa 1930 - Estimate - Rs 4,00,000 - 6,00,000 ($6,065 - 9,095)
Dhamija’s journey began in 1956, when she was put in charge of reviving textiles. “It fascinated me because I felt the textiles tell you a history of a people. It was like a non-verbal language,” says the author of Sacred Textiles of India (2014).
Back then, Dhamija was working closely with social reformer and nationalist, Kamaladevi Chatttopadhyay, who was instrumental in reviving craft traditions that were in danger of dying out. Referring to old British Gazetteers, the duo located craftspeople in a village, where they even met the last known weaver of the kani shawl, a legacy of the Moghals.
“During this time, I was working as a cultural advisor on women’s employment for UNDP, which took me to Iran. Tehran became my second home, where I lived for seven years,” she says. It was in Isfahan that Dhamija acquired the Shah Nama Kalamkari, a hand drawn and handwoven cotton with a pictorial rendering of the Shah Nama, based on an ancient Pahlavi work known as Xwadaynamag —the Book of Kings from a master kalamkar in 1971.
On a parting note, we ask her about what led her to part with this exquisite collection preserved over the years. “The collection was just lying in my house in boxes. All I hope is that my life’s work will not be forgotten.”
What: Woven Treasures: Textiles from the Jasleen Dhamija Collection
Where: saffronart.com
When: October 19, 9.30 pm to October 20, 9 pm
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