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Bandhani: special textiles made in Kachchh (Kutch) in the west of India

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HERE IS ANOTHER EXTRACT from the draft of my forthcoming book, “Road To Heaven. A Passage through India”. about recent travels in west and south India. This sample describes a type of textile that is made in Kachchh (Kutch) in the west of India. This piece relates to the town of Mandvi.

“One type of fabric, for which Kachchh is noted is bandhani.   It is a method of tie-dyeing that is frequently used by textile workers in Kachchh. Knots are tied in the piece of material that is to be dyed, and then the knotted fabric is dipped into a vat of dye. The dye colours all the material except the parts enclosed within the knots. Let me explain the procedure.  Starting with the ‘raw’ cloth that is usually whitish in colour, craftworkers gather small amounts of the material using their fingertips, and tie these small bundles with thread. The bundles are tied according to a predetermined pattern drawn on the cloth.  The tied cloth is then dipped into a dye. When the dyeing is completed and dried, a new set of knots is tied on the already knotted cloth. The cloth is then dipped into a different coloured dye. A new set of knots is sometimes then tied according to the kind of design that has been planned, and the cloth is dipped into yet another colour dye. This process of tying and dyeing can be repeated several times. After the several cycles of tying and dying are completed, the cloth is stretched, the knots undo noisily (a crackling sound can be heard as the threads break), and a textile with a fascinatingly complex and beautiful pattern is revealed. The bandhani process is complicated and very demanding. Consequently, the these fabrics are quite highly priced and highly prized.

On our visits to Mandvi, including during our most recent one, we have visited an old shop where bandhani fabrics are made and sold. Its current owner, Mr Ashraf Katri, always remembers us when we stop at his shop. He told us that the business has been in existence for at least 150 years. That means the present generation of the family working in the establishment is the fourth or fifth since it first opened. On a couple of occasions, Mr Katri has shown us some bandhani cloth that was made over 100 years ago. The patterning on this old cloth is far more intricate and finely detailed than any bandhani produced today. Mr Katri explained that it must have been made by someone with very tiny fingers, possibly a young child, because only someone with such small digits would have been able to tie the minute knots needed to create such an exquisitely detailed pattern.”

Hazards and memories of childhood on Hampstead Heath

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DURING MY CHILDHOOD in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I used to walk on London’s Hampstead Heath with my parents. Usually, we left our home in Hampstead Garden Suburb and walked south across the manicured, grassy fields of Hampstead Heath Extension. Sometimes, we went further, crossing Wildwood Road and entering the wilder, hillier, wooded part of the Heath until we reached the Spaniards Road.

The part of the heath that extends between Wildwood and Spaniards Roads contains a few hollows in which there are bogs. Back in my childhood, there used to be signs posted within these boggy hollows. They read:

“DANGER SWAMPY GROUND”

My mother, who was always a little too anxious about her children’s safety, drilled it into my sibling and me that we should never stray close to these swampy depression. She warned us that should we enter them, we would be sucked down below the surface, and lost forever, and fatally. Whenever I saw these signs, I used to want to hurry away from them.

Today, 10 June 2026, almost 60 years later, a friend of ours took us to see the swamps, which are exactly where I remember seeing them so many decades earlier. I believe that I had not seen them since the 1960s. To my great disappointment, the warning signs were no longer there. However, the bogs or swamps have become beautiful with leafy plants and trees growing in them. Seeing them after such a long interval reminded me of my childhood, but my fear of them seems to have evaporated.

From Hiroshima in Japan to High Street Kensington in London

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KYOTOGRAPHIE IS ONE of Asia’s largest festivals of photography. Both Japanese photographers, Kawada Kikuji (born 1933) and Iwane Ai (born 1975), have exhibited their images at this festival. Works by these highly acclaimed photographers are on display at a temporary exhibition being held at Japan House London, in High Street Kensington, until 18 October 2026.

At Hiroshima, by Kawada Kikuji

I have viewed many exhibitions of photography over the years, but few of them, if any, can rival what I saw at Japan House. Not only is the quality and content of each image amazingly good, but also the design (layout and display) of the exhibition space is itself a highly original work of art. To use a well-worn expression, this show ‘takes one’s breath away’.

Amongst the beautiful photographs on display, there are several relating to the domed structure which miraculously remained standing in the heart of Hiroshima after the atom bomb had been dropped on the city in 1945. These images were made in black and white by Kawada Kikuji. Some of them are almost abstract, but they are very moving. His other photographs are quite unlike any I have seen in the past. On the wall facing these pictures, there is a message in both Japanese and English, which reads:

“The voices calling for nuclear disarmament always disappear into the depths of the earth.”

Iwane Ai’s photographs, unlike most of Kawada’s, are coloured, but there are a few which are not. Some of the images are on curved screens, around which viewers can walk. One intriguing set of pictures has typically Japanese subject matter: cherry blossom. However, her photographs were taken during the covid19 pandemic when, unlike normal times, these trees blossomed in the absence of the usual crowds who come to see them.

Words cannot do justice to this fine exhibition. If you can get to see it, you will not be disappointed.

This artist shines lights on life in modern India

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BORN IN MYSORE (Mysuru) in 1969, the Indian artist NS Harsha lives and works in that city. He studied art first at Mysore’s Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts, and then at Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda (Vadodara). Until 31 July 2026, there is a wonderful exhibition of his large paintings at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London.

Almost all of Harsha’s beautifully executed paintings in the show contain depictions of lighted oil lamps (diyas), often many in a single work. In some paintings, the oil lamps are arranged to form regular patterns. In others, they are interspersed with images of people, animals, food, and items used in daily life. The numerous people who appear in these works are frequently workers in their overalls and hard hats (helmets), animals, and people planting crops. From a visual point of view, the paintings are very pleasing even if one has no idea what, if any, message the artist is attempting to convey. Although they depict contemporary subjects and far from being miniature, they hark back to the historical traditions of Indian Miniature paintings.

In a web page produced by the Chemould (Prescott Road) Gallery in Bombay, I read that:

“Like a chronicler, often drawing from popular stories and local perceptions of international news events, Harsha depicts in his canvasses small town/city Indian life in our increasingly globalized times. His intricately detailed canvasses juxtapose seemingly disassociated images of scenes of small town and village India with those of more recognizably international ones. Harsha’s multi-layered narratives strongly suggest that the global is always already located within the local imagination.”

Regarding the lamps in the paintings, the Victoria Miro website explained:

“The works, which elaborate on the artist’s celebrated, ongoing ‘lamp grid’ series, feature diyas – lamps traditionally made from clay that are lit during rituals, prayers, ceremonies, celebrations and during power cuts – with flames and trails of smoke together creating patterns that guide the eye around each canvas …  In Harsha’s work they represent energy, forces perhaps unseen.”

This interesting interpretation is useful enough, but the paintings alone speak for themselves, and throw an intriguing light on contemporary life in India.

I enjoyed viewing this exhibition, and becoming aware of a fascinating artist, whom I had not come across before.

A book that should be read by everyone during these troubled times

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GERMAN WRITER FRIEDRICH Reck (1884-1945) was conservative politically,  but not a supporter of Adolf Hitler. In fact, he hated the dictator,  the Nazi regime, and what it did to bring about the downfall, morally and materially, of the Germany he was brought up to love.

From 1936 until his arrest in 1944, he wrote a secret journal, which he had to keep hidden from all eyes. The journal, “Diary of a Man in Despair” was discovered in 1947, when it was first published.  Each of its superbly written entries charts the gradual decline of Germany, its people, the increasing immorality of the population, and its morally corrupt rulers.

Reading Reck’s book it is a frightening experience. It describes things that are not too dissimilar to what is happening in today’s political climate. And in the context of contemporary life in many continents, it can be read as a chilling warning. Reck’s account provides a good idea of what could happen if people believe the lies and promises of populist leaders, then elect them, and after that, fail to resist their megalomaniac, psychotic ideas and actions.

I discovered a copy of Reck’s book in a second-hand bookshop, and after beginning to read it, I found it difficult to put it down.

A novel set in South Africa after the end of apartheid

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TO ENHANCE RACIST policies, the apartheid government of South Africa set up a series of ‘homelands’. These were areas in less desirable parts of the country in which black African people were ‘encouraged’ or compelled to set up homes. Notionally self-governing, these territories were, in reality, black ghettos, often impoverished. “The Good Doctor”, a novel  by Damon Galgut, who was born in South Africa, (published 2003) is set after the end of apartheid in a run-down, almost deserted, god-forsaken town in what had been a former homeland close to one of South Africa’s borders.

Most of the novel’s action is centred on the town’s under-staffed, poorly equipped, almost unused hospital. Frank is a doctor, who has been working there for several years. He seems quite content with the boring, uneventful life he has been experiencing while working there. Everything begins to change when Laurence, a young and idealistic doctor, arrives to spend a year at the hospital. He wants to make changes, to give the almost moribund hospital more of a sense of purpose.

Frank is obliged to share his quarters with Laurence, and inevitably they get to know each other well. Following Laurence’s arrival, a series of events begins to affect both Frank and his young room-mate. These occurrences, which Galgut relates beautifully, disturb the life of the hospital. Things get worse after a troop of soldiers, who are patrolling the border, settle in the town for a few weeks. Their commander is an unpleasant man, under whom Frank served while he was in the army before apartheid had ended.

At first, I felt that one of the two doctors was ‘The Good Doctor’ in the book’s title, but by the end of the story I was left wondering whether it was Frank or Laurence who was the good doctor. You will have to read this wonderfully written, compelling tale to be able to assess which of the two deserves your sympathy. Or are they both to be criticised?

I enjoyed this novel, the second by Galgut that I have read, and look forward to reading a third. I have a copy of his “The Promise” waiting close by.

Hearing Welsh being spoken one Sunday in London

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KAFFEINE IS THE NAME of an excellent little café in central London’s Eastcastle Street. We go there often, always passing that intrigues me, but which I had never entered until the last day of May 2026. Built in 1889 with a brick and stone façade that includes some columns with Corinthian capitals, it bears the name “Capel Bedyddwyr Cymreig”. Designed by the architect Owen Lewis, it is The Welsh Church of Central London, or in Welsh ‘Eglwys Gymraeg Canol Llundain’.

Inside the church, there is a vestibule with a mosaic floor. Within this space I noticed a Bible in Welsh lying within a glass case. A pair of doors leads into the main body of the church. This rectangular space has a centrally positioned set of organ pipes at one end, and beneath them, a pulpit (upon which the preacher was standing). A gallery with cast-iron balustrades and supported by slender pillars with Corinthian capitals. The ceiling curved gently upwards towards a centrally located set of windows that ran along the long axis of the church.

On the day we entered the church, there were no more than about 20 people in the congregation. Two services are conducted every Sunday, and occasionally the church hosts an organ recital.

I am pleased that after having passed this church many times and finding it closed, we were at last able to enter it. Also it was lovely hearing Welsh being spoken, even if I could not understand a word of it.

The church is used for Baptist services. When we entered it on a Sunday morning, a service was in progress. It was being led by a lady, who said things in Welsh, and then repeated what she had spoken in English. The proceedings were bilingual.

Although the church was fairly empty, the same could not be said of Kaffeine. Despite it being a Sunday morning in an area where most businesses were closed, this café was extremely busy, quite crowded.

Modern art from Madras (Chennai)

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OUR FRIEND THE artist Premlatha Seshadri (born 1947) lives and works in Chennai (Madras). Whenever we visit the city, we meet her. A couple of days ago, she sent us a message to inform us that two of her works were being displayed in Bateman Street, London, by The Noble Sage Gallery. They were hanging in a show, “The Journey So Far …”, to celebrate the gallery’s twentieth anniversary. Today, 31 May 2026, on the exhibition’s final day, we saw her exhibits and those of other artists. Fortunately, we arrived at the show just in time to be guided around it by the gallery’s knowledgeable, friendly owner Jana Manuelpillai.

By Premlatha Seshadri

Premlatha studied art in London at Hornsey Art College and also in Chennai at the Government College of Arts and Crafts (‘GCAC’).  Founded as ‘The Madras School of Art’ in 1850, it got its present name in 1962. It was India’s first art school of the type found in Britain. Premlatha was a student of K.C.S. Panniker (1911-1977). One of his drawings was on display at the Noble Sage show. Alongside his and Premlatha’s works, there were other pictures created by artists from Chennai, most of whom had been students at GCAC. Mr Manuelpillai explained how the selection of paintings together formed a sort of genealogy of modern art in Chennai.

The other artists from Chennai whose works could be viewed in the show included: T Athiveerapandian (1966-2025), RB Bhaskaran (b 1942), S Dhanapal (1919-2000), CJ Anthony Doss (1933-2008), P Gopinath (b 1948), Achuthan Kudallur (1945-2022), M Natesh (1960-2024), G Raman (b 1942), AP Santhanaraj (1932-2009), and KM Adimoolam (1938-2008). I imagine that our friend Premlatha knows all these artists and their work.

Although there was remarkable variety in style and composition of the works produced by the Chennai artists on display, those of Premlatha stood out from the others. The website of Noble Sage explained:

“Seshadris work has, through its differentiation, defined the contours of the Madras Movement of the early 1960s. Disinterested in Tamil Nadus rich Dravidian Hindu artistic heritage, and therefore flying in the face of much of Pannikers teaching, her art only has its driving line in common with other artists in Chennai such as A.P. Santhanaraj, L. Munuswamy and R.B. Bhaskaran. However her employment of this line is quite different. Seshadri has for many decades been inspired by the simplicity and truthfulness of Zen poetry and literature and applied this thinking to her line and her content.”

Indeed, the two pictures we saw at the exhibition share something in common with the way that Picasso was able to capture a great deal (in some of his works) using only a few brush strokes judiciously, Although quite unlike anything produced by Picasso or Japanese artists, whose works come to mind when seeing her creations, Premlatha is able to express a great deal apparently simply, but in fact, quite sophisticatedly.

I am very pleased that Premlatha alerted us to the exhibition. Not only did we get a chance to view her works, but also seeing the show and hearing Mr Manuelpillai’s lucid discourse was a brilliant introduction to a body of artistic creation of which I was unaware: The Madras Art Movement also known as ‘The Madras Movement’).