Block Printing in Bagru With My Aunt
By Priya Patel · Jaipur, India · 2025-10-27
My aunt has printed cloth in Bagru for forty years. The first thing she teaches anyone is that the block is heavier than it looks, and that the mud resist has to dry in the sun before you dare touch the indigo.
By noon the yard is covered in cloth. Nobody hurries here. The colour decides when it is finished, not the printer.
Back in the Pink City for Diwali week. Johari Bazaar is strung with lights end to end, and every shopkeeper wants you to sit down for chai before you see anything.
We go up to Amber Fort at 6:30, before the buses. The fort turns gold for about ten minutes and then it is just a very beautiful building again.
The best view of the Hawa Mahal is from the rooftop café opposite, with a cup of masala chai and the street waking up below.
Diwali night at my family's house: rangoli on the floor, a hundred clay lamps, and my grandmother's rule that guests eat first. This is the part of the trip people write to me about a year later.
Walk this trip on the 3D globe in EWIG