Kalamkari

What defines it

1. 01

   Bamboo kalam and kasimi black

2. 02

   Myrobalan and alum mordants

3. 03

   Epic narrative panels (Srikalahasti)

4. 04

   Block printing (Machilipatnam)

01Two towns, two styles

At Srikalahasti, beside the Shiva temple of the Vayu linga, painters drew large cloths for temple chariots and halls: Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavata scenes, panel after panel, with Telugu captions. At Machilipatnam on the coast, the cloth was printed with carved wooden blocks and then painted, and under the Golconda Sultans and the European companies it was shipped to Persia, Southeast Asia and Europe as chintz. The word kalamkari, pen-work, came from that Persian trade.

02Myrobalan, alum and running water

The cotton is washed, then soaked in myrobalan and buffalo milk so the dyes will hold. The painter draws the outline with a bamboo pen dipped in kasimi, a black made from iron filings and jaggery. Alum is painted where red is wanted, and the cloth is boiled with madder or chay root; the colour fixes only where the alum lies. Indigo gives blue, and yellow is painted over it for green. Between steps the cloth is washed in running water and dried in the sun, many times over.

03Today

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay’s Handicrafts Board helped revive Srikalahasti kalamkari in the 1950s, and a training centre was set up there. J. Gurappa Chetty of Srikalahasti is the best-known master of the revival. Both Srikalahasti and Machilipatnam kalamkari carry Geographical Indication tags. Visit the workshops near the Srikalahasti temple, and the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad for old pieces. A large temple cloth from Srikalahasti can take a painter several weeks.

Great masters

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