Explore Bharat

A weave is not a pattern you can move. It belongs to a river, a dye pit, a family that has kept a count of threads for four hundred years. Twenty-six states, the cloth each one is known for, and the colour it is known by — choose one and it will tell you what it makes.

Six of these, at length.

The gold thread of Banaras, the border that faces both ways, why Chanderi is see-through, and how to tell a handloom from a machine.