The sound of Bagru
A town of printers: Bagru has been one for at least three centuries, by most accounts.
The Chhipas: the printing families belong to this community, whose name is tied to the work itself, from the word for printing.
Why here: their ancestors are said to have settled near the river for water to wash, open ground to dry and a market in the city Sawai Jai Singh II was building nearby.
- Where
- On the old Jaipur to Ajmer road
- Distance
- About an hour from the walled city
- Printing for
- At least three centuries, by most accounts
- Community
- The Chhipa printers
- Known for
- Dabu mud resist and earth colours
- How old: sources disagree on when the craft began, and the printers will tell you it is older than anyone can prove.
- The palette: a cream ground stained with harda, the fruit of the myrobalan tree, an iron black called syahi, a red called begar made with alum and madder, and the blues of the indigo vat.
- Dabu: a resist printed with mud. A paste of clay and gum is stamped on, dusted with sawdust or chaff, dried and dipped in indigo.
- The result: where the mud was, the dye can't reach, so the pattern appears pale against blue, softly cracked where the mud cracked.
- Village clothes: for generations these were the everyday skirts, veils, turbans and bedcovers of the villages around Jaipur, not tourist goods.
- Cloth that speaks: particular colours and motifs were worn by particular communities, by married women or widows, for weddings or for mourning. A woman's printed odhni, her veil, told a stranger a great deal.
- Still worn: some meanings have faded, but you'll still see them in village markets near Bagru.
- Near extinction: in the twentieth century mill cloth and screen printing nearly finished the craft.
- How it survived: a handful of families kept going, designers in Jaipur and abroad came looking for real hand printing, and travellers came to see it.
- Dyes today: many printers mix natural dyes with safe synthetic ones, and some have returned entirely to natural dyes for export. The blocks, hands and rhythm are the same.
How a Bagru print is made
- Harda
- Myrobalan mordant; gives the cream ground
- Syahi
- Iron black, fermented with jaggery
- Begar
- Alum red, fixed with madder
- Rekh, gadh, datta
- Outline, background and detail blocks
- Monsoon
- Work slows; cloth won't dry
Preparing the cloth
Softening: raw cotton arrives stiff with starch and is soaked, beaten and washed, sometimes for days, until soft and absorbent.
- The old method: a mixture including dung, castor oil and soda ash, then another wash.
- Why: only then will it take dye evenly.
The harda bath
The dip: a solution of ground myrobalan turns the cloth a pale yellowish cream.
- A mordant: harda contains tannin, which helps the iron black and the red bind to the fibre.
- The Bagru look: it gives old Bagru cloth its warm, faintly golden ground, so different from the bright white of Sanganer.
The blocks
The wood: usually sheesham or teak, with a set for every design.
- Three for a flower: the rekh prints the outline, the gadh fills the background and the datta adds detail inside the flower.
- Registration: each block must line up exactly with the others, and a good printer does it by eye, using tiny marks on the block.
- The signature: the faint joins where one impression meets the next prove the work was done by hand.
Syahi and begar
Syahi: scrap iron fermented with jaggery and water for days into a dark liquid with a smell you won't forget. On harda-treated cloth it prints black.
- Begar: made with alum, which becomes a true red only when the cloth is later boiled with madder or a similar dye.
- The order: outlines first, then fills, along a padded table with a tray of colour beside the printer.
Dabu and the indigo vat
The resist: mud paste stamped where the pattern should stay pale, sprinkled with sawdust against smudging and dried in the sun.
- Green to blue: the cloth comes out of the indigo vat green and turns blue in the air as the dye oxidises, the moment every guest wants to see.
- Deeper blues: several dips deepen the colour, and some cloths get dabu twice for two shades.
Washing and drying
Finishing: the cloth is washed to remove mud and loose dye, sometimes boiled to fix the colours.
- The drying fields: laid out on open ground, so winter mornings around Bagru are striped with long lengths of printed cotton.
- The women who turn it: they know exactly when each length is ready.
- Why the monsoon stops it: nothing will dry.
Why the old colours work
Black from rust and fruit: the iron in syahi reacts with the tannin that harda leaves in the cloth, and the two together make a deep, lasting black. On untreated cotton the same liquid barely shows.
Red only where the alum went: when the cloth is boiled with madder, the dye binds only to the fibres printed with alum, so the red appears exactly where the block struck.
- Indigo
- Leaves of Indigofera tinctoria
- Madder
- Roots of Indian madder, manjistha
- Harda
- Dried fruit of the myrobalan tree
- Protected name
- Bagru Hand Block Print, a Geographical Indication
- Why indigo needs a vat: indigo does not dissolve in plain water. In the fermented vat it turns soluble and pale, soaks into the cotton, then becomes blue again as it meets the air.
- A protected name: Bagru Hand Block Print is registered as a Geographical Indication, applied for by a society of the town's own printers, so the name belongs to work made here in the traditional way.
- Ask to see the raw materials: most families keep harda, alum and indigo cake in the dye house, and they will gladly let you smell and handle them.
The carvers behind the blocks
A separate craft: block carving is often practised by separate families.
The method: the design is drawn or transferred onto a flat hardwood face, and fine chisels and a small hammer cut away everything that should not print.
Fine detail: thin lines stay as ridges of wood, and solid areas are sometimes cut with tiny channels so colour spreads evenly.
- Wood
- Seasoned hardwood, planed flat
- Simple block
- About a day
- Detailed block
- A week or more
- Carving centres
- Pethapur in Gujarat, Jaipur, Bagru
- Air holes and handles: holes drilled through the larger blocks let trapped air escape, and a handle is fixed to the back.
- The test is registration: if outline and fill blocks don't match exactly, the colours drift and the cloth is spoiled.
- Prized carvers: the best are booked months ahead.
- Where blocks come from: some of the finest used in Rajasthan are carved in Pethapur, across the border in Gujarat, and others in Jaipur and in Bagru itself.
- Old blocks: treasured, passed down within families, and sometimes retired to hang on a wall when too worn to print cleanly.
- Watch a carver: tell us, and we can usually arrange it in Jaipur or at the Anokhi Museum in Amer.
- Your own block: some guests commission a monogram or family motif, to print onto table linen or carry home as an object.
Where we arrange block printing
Bagru, the mud-resist town
A family we know: a Chhipa printing family, in their own workshop and home.
- The whole process: from the harda bath to the indigo vat, and you print your own cloth.
- Fair and pressure-free: the family is paid properly for its time, there is no pressure to buy, and if you do buy, it is from the people who made it.
- Getting there: about an hour from the walled city of Jaipur, depending on traffic.
Sanganer, the fine florals
Where: closer to the city, near the airport.
The look: finer, more delicate prints, often small flowers and sprigs on bright white.
- Handmade paper: also made in the same town.
- Today: much of the printing is in larger workshops, but some families still print by hand.
- A perfect full day: Bagru and Sanganer together, and comparing them is the best way to learn the craft.
The Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing, Amer
Where: a restored haveli in old Amer, a few minutes' walk from the fort.
- What it shows: block printing from carving the block to the final wash, with a printer or carver usually working in the courtyard.
- The best introduction: we often start a Bagru day here, or pair it with Amber Fort and the stepwell of Panna Meena ka Kund.
The bazaars of the walled city
Where: Bapu Bazaar and Nehru Bazaar, inside Jaipur's southern wall.
- What they sell: block-printed cotton by the metre, quilts, tablecloths and clothes.
- Mixed quality: from superb to screen-printed, and after Bagru you'll tell the difference. Our guide to the bazaars of Jaipur explains where to go.
Akola and the dabu of Mewar
Where: the villages around Akola, near Chittorgarh.
- Its own dabu: deep indigo and heavy, bold patterns.
- On the route: less visited than Bagru, and it fits naturally between Udaipur and Bundi.
Barmer and Kutch, the ajrakh country
Ajrakh: in Barmer and across the border in Kutch, a complex resist cloth in indigo and madder red with geometric patterns, printed on both sides.
- Ajrakhpur: after the 2001 earthquake, Khatri printing families from Dhamadka founded this new village east of Bhuj, named for the craft.
- Journeys: our textile and craft trail and Rajasthan and Kutch link them with Bagru.
A morning in Bagru, the way we spend it
- Arrive
- About nine
- Allow
- Three hours
- You make
- A scarf, cushion cover or tote bag
- Afterwards
- Lunch, or Sanganer for the afternoon
Nine o'clock, the workshop
Setting up: we arrive as the printers lay out their tables.
- The blocks: over tea, the head of the family shows you blocks, some generations old and smoothed by use, and how a design is built from three or four of them.
- Hold one: an old block is heavier than you expect, and the carving astonishingly fine.
Ten o'clock, the colours
- The dye house: the vat of harda, the fermenting iron that becomes syahi, and dabu mud being mixed by hand.
- The indigo moment: if the vat is ready, a length of cloth goes in and comes out green, turning blue in front of you.
Eleven o'clock, your own cloth
Your turn: the printer helps you choose a block, dip it, line it up and strike it with the heel of your hand.
- What guests make: usually a scarf, a cushion cover or a tote bag.
- Crooked is charming: your first impressions will be crooked.
- Finished for you: the family washes and finishes it and we deliver it to your hotel, or send it on if it needs more time.
Noon, the drying fields
The open ground: where cloth dries in the sun.
- The lanes: if the family is happy, we walk on to other workshops.
- Then: back to Jaipur, or on to Sanganer, with lunch on the way.
How to tell a real hand block print
Look for joins: faint lines where one impression meets the next, and tiny shifts in registration between outline and fill.
Turn it over: with hand printing on cotton the colour usually soaks through to the back. A screen or machine print often sits on the surface.
- Check the repeat: a machine print is identical along its length, and a hand print varies slightly in pressure and colour.
- Smell it: natural dyes and syahi smell earthy when new, and chemical dyes smell sharper.
- Dabu crackle: the pale areas show fine cracks where the dried mud cracked in the indigo vat.
- Believe the price: a metre of real hand block printing cannot be sold for the price of a mill print.
- Washing: natural indigo and iron black fade softly rather than bleeding. Wash new pieces separately in cold water the first few times.
- Read more: our block print buying guide goes further, and our shopping guide explains how we choose the shops we trust.
When to go, and the right hour
October to March: warm, dry days, cloth dries quickly and the workshops are busy with festival and wedding orders.
Before Diwali: in the weeks before Diwali, in October or November, families work long hours and the mood is cheerful and full.
- Best season
- October to March
- Busiest
- The weeks before Diwali
- Best hours
- About nine until noon
- Hot months
- April to June; first light only
- Monsoon
- July to September, a gamble
- The best hours: about nine until noon, when the light is soft, the printers are fresh and the indigo vats are often in use.
- April to June: very hot. Printers work early and late, so we visit at first light and finish by mid-morning.
- The monsoon: rain makes drying difficult and many families slow down, though the countryside is green and lovely. We check with the family the day before.
- A working town: some days a family has a big order, a wedding or a festival and would rather not have visitors, so we always ask first.
- The wider picture: our guide to the best time to visit Jaipur.
Who will love it
Designers and photographers
Textile and colour lovers: they find Bagru absorbing, and designers often ask for a full day, or several, on one stage.
- What we can arrange: longer sessions, a day with a block carver, or a visit timed for a particular dyeing process.
- Photographers: the drying fields, the indigo vats and the printers' hands. Families are happy to be photographed at work if you ask first.
Families with children
Hands-on and messy: printing your own cloth is fun, and children are less self-conscious than adults about a crooked print.
- Our advice: keep it to two or three hours, carry water and let them keep the finished piece.
- More ideas: our page on travelling with children.
Who it suits less well
- Dust, smells and simple surroundings: the workshops are family courtyards, not galleries, with nowhere smart to sit.
- The alternative: the Anokhi Museum in Amer gives a clean, calm introduction, and an hour in a good Jaipur shop gives you the cloth without the vats.
Fair pay, and the commission problem
The commission game: many drivers and guides across Rajasthan earn a cut of whatever guests buy in certain shops.
What it does: it raises prices, pushes factory cloth sold as hand work and takes money from the makers.
Our way: our guides are paid never to play it. We pay the family for its time whether you buy or not, and never take a share of what you spend.
- Our guides
- No commission, ever
- The family
- Paid for its time, buy or not
- Bargaining
- Not over small pieces
- Shipping
- Tracked, for larger orders
- Buy directly: and don't bargain hard over a scarf or a cushion cover, where a small sum matters far more to the family than to you.
- Larger orders: bed linen or upholstery lengths get a fair quote, and we can arrange tracked shipping home.
- Read more: our page on the artisans we work with explains how we choose the workshops we visit, and travelling responsibly explains our approach.
- Photographs: ask before photographing anyone, especially women in the dye house or the fields.
- The drying cloth: don't step on it, however tempting the shortcut.
- Dress for dye: indigo and syahi do not wash out easily.
- Tea: accept it if offered. Refusing outright can seem cold.
- Leave no trace: leave the workshop as you found it, and take any plastic back with you.
Combining Bagru with the rest of your stay
With Amer and the Anokhi Museum
- In order: Amber Fort and the Anokhi Museum one morning, Bagru the next, so you understand the craft before you see it done.
- The days together: our Jaipur itinerary shows how they fit.
With Jaipur's other crafts
- Add an afternoon: with the blue pottery makers, the gem cutters of Johari Bazaar on our gems and jewellery page, or the lac-bangle makers of Maniharon ka Rasta.
- All of them: our page on block printing and crafts.
Where to stay
- Samode Haveli: Samode Haveli inside the walled city is close to the textile bazaars, and its painted rooms suit a crafts-minded stay.
- A shorter drive: Rambagh Palace and Jai Mahal Palace are on the south-west side of the city, nearer the Bagru road.
On a longer craft journey
- Twelve nights: our textile and craft trail follows the crafts from Jaipur to Bundi, Udaipur and Jodhpur.
- Along the way: leheriya and bandhani tie-dye, miniature painting and the weavers of Kota Doria. Read about leheriya and bandhani before you go.