Arti BaliNew DElhi, April 18 -- "They are not just mere decorative cloth. They are living archives and we are running out of time to save them." Spoken at a Delhi exhibition hall, carries the weight of an emergency most of India has not yet registered.
"Threaded Heritage: Symbolism, Ritual and Memory in North East Textiles," curated by Sentila T. Yanger, brought to the capital something the national conversation on handlooms almost never includes: the extraordinary woven civilisations of Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, Sikkim and Mizoram, traditions that encode warrior ethics, bridal covenants and entire cosmologies in cotton and silk. And it did so at precisely the moment those traditions are closest to disappearing. India's handloom sector is ...