Tales of treaures

Beeji often tells tales of how as a bunch of young girls, she, her sisters, cousins and friends, they used to sit together and embroider their Phulkaris. Phulkari, literally means, embroidery of flowers, and is usually done in geometric patterns. She recalled that they used to get a special fabric called tool, from the town of Bathinda as they could not get it anywhere else.

In my last post, I had mentioned how a plain old phulkari brought together two strangers. This one, in red colour with embroidery in mustard thread, was one of her creations on tool. It also has her name embroidered. It says: “Dari buni Gurdial Kaur Harnam Kaur Chatan Kaur te Jasmer Kaur.” (This piece was embroidered by Gurdial Kaur, Harnam kaur, Chatan Kaur and Jasmer Kaur). The piece of art also had some stains and marks on it. Beeji explained that this is on the part which was used to cover the head, and the stains are of wet earthern pitchers, which were used to carry water in those times.

An antique... a treasure for life.

Cultural Bonds

Last weekend we visited our village in Punjab, we went to pay obeisance at the Gurudwara Sahib there. I was waiting with my mother-in-law when an old lady walked up to me and started asking about the phulkari dupatta that I had draped. She inquired that from where had I got that, as that kind was no longer available. My grandmother-in-law had given it to me, and it was a part of her trousseau. Incidentally, it was the first phulkari that she had embroidered. It was a red colored tool with mustard motifs.


The lady started telling me that she had also embroidered such things and how it was becoming very rare. She was glad that she saw someone wearing such a phulkari, and how her daughters and grand daughters found it too old fashioned to wear these. In fact, she called one of her grand daughters and showed her what I was wearing. Since I am in love with all things phulkari, we kept discussing the different styles of phulkari for quite some time. My grandmother-in-law found out that the lady was in fact from her maternal village.

I wondered how virsa and virasat can bring together two strangers and rekindle fond memories.