Block Printing at Bagru and Sanganer

Bagru and Sanganer sit on opposite sides of Jaipur and print cotton in different ways. Sanganer is known for fine floral repeats on a white or pale ground, printed with small carved blocks and finished in a soft palette. Bagru works darker and earthier, using a mud-resist paste called dabu together with natural dyes, above all indigo and the red drawn from madder, so cloth is printed, dried, resisted, dyed and washed over several days. In both places the process is visible from the lane: block carvers cutting teak, printers moving down a long padded table stamping by eye, and lengths of fabric laid out to dry in the sun.

Highlights

• Block carving - teak blocks cut by hand, one per colour, with fine detail chiselled out.
• The printing table - printers working down a padded table, registering each stamp by eye and by mark.
• Mud resist and indigo at Bagru - dabu paste applied, then repeated dips in vats before washing.
• Drying grounds - long lengths of printed cotton spread on open ground and riverbank to dry.

When to go

October to March is the workable window in Rajasthan; from April the yards are brutally hot. Printing and dyeing largely stop during heavy monsoon rain, so July and August are a poor bet. Mornings are the active hours. Workshops that take visitors prefer notice, and day classes need booking rather than turning up at the gate.

Things to know

Both villages have grown a visitor trade, and some workshops now run staged demonstrations aimed at selling cloth at inflated prices. Screen-printed and machine-printed imitations are sold as hand block work all over Jaipur. The yards are muddy, dye-stained and not remotely scenic. Getting there needs a hired car or rickshaw and some haggling over the fare.

Nearby

Jaipur's old city bazaars and the road up to Amber are both about half an hour away.