Scenes of everyday life on sainchi include personal effects, such as jewellery and combs, domestic animals, ox-carts and household objects. We also see men playing dice games, spinning wheels, cooking or other routine activities. Railway imagery is also used - a locomotive spewing thick smoke, passengers looking out of carriage windows. Circus images with animals and acrobats are common. Especially graphic are scenes featuring figures such as a begging yogi, a man beating his wife, or a British official visiting a village.

Sar pallu from east Punjab have wide borders which are usually very bold and colourful. Assembled from lozenges and triangles, the design sometimes evokes wild and abstract fantasy landscapes with the central field decorated with small flowers, birds and other animals.

There are, too, features which differentiate west Punjabi pieces from those of east Punjab. Normally cloth and embroidery from west Punjab was finer and a better quality of silk was used. Also in western Punjab examples, black or blue was seldom seen as the ground colour, while in east Punjab white was not used. The central fields in the western group were for the most part embroidered with only one or two colours, while the number of colour combinations in eastern types was much greater. Moreover, the women in east Punjab had a larger repertoire of stitches, and used cotton and very often wool was used as the embroidery thread.
   
In contrast to the much more varied patterns in the eastern repertoire, with its depictions of human figures, animals and birds, in west Punjabi embroideries the motifs and patterns in abstract represent¬ations were rather limited. This may be associated with the influence of Islam in the eastern Punjab, and the consequent prohibition of figural representations in their art. Finally, in west Punjab the strips of material were first embroidered, then sewn together, whereas in the east Punjab these two steps were reversed. In phulkaris from Haryana, the southeast of the old Punjab, the main field is often divided into regular squares in which the motif may be repeated. The monotony of this design is sometimes relieved by the introduction of other motifs or ornaments. Naturally, there are exceptions to all these “rules”, but they serve as a useful guide.

Punjabi villagers are considered to be superstitious and god-fearing people. In order to ward off the evil eye, a newborn would have a black fleck painted on their cheek; a bride would have a black tassel tied onto her red and ivory arm rings and a black pot would be hung in front of a new house. For the same reason, even the most perfectionist of embroiderers allowed themselves small flaws in their work, suddenly using another colour or leaving a small area unembroidered. Many women simply leave a couple of centimetres of loose hanging thread to show that the work is unfinished. Since the Sikhs were “enlightened” and in general less superstitious, these symbols occur mostly on Hindu-produced pieces. Such deliberate irregularities are known as nazar butti.

One often finds in a corner of the embroidery, or in another concealed place, a name cartouche, usually in Gurmukkhi script. This is the name either of the embroiderer or of the owner. Sometimes the embroidered syllable Om or Ek-Onkar is visible. These holy mantras of the Hindus or the Sikhs are meant to invoke God's blessing on the success of the work or to bring divine favour to its wearer.

The original purpose of emb¬roidery was to adorn the rough simple surface of odhinis. Gradually people began to connect some of the motifs and patterns with certain events and ceremonies, and so the textiles acquired a religious and magical significance. In a tradition minded Punjabi family, for instance, no important ceremony was held without the offering of a specific type of phulkari by the senior woman of the family.

Many, if not most, pieces have a particular relation to parts of the marriage ceremony and married life. This fact, coupled with the rich, mainly floral motifs of the phulkari, points to an associative connection with the family's fecundity and well-being. For example, yet another phulkari type was used for the ceremonial bath before the wedding (nahai dhoi), the filling of the clay pots (gharoli bhorna) and the mounting of the horse by the groom (ghoricharana).

The bride's family presented the groom's relations with baghs and phulkaris, which formed a part of the dowry. When a new mother left her room for the first time on the eleventh day after the birth of a child, she wore a phulkari. At the same time, a very large embroidered cloth - the less richly worked til patra (scattered sesame) - would be distributed to the men and women servants of the house.

The year of an Indian family is rich in festive days, for which sometimes Punjabi women wore phulkaris. Honoured guests of a house found a phulkari laid out specially as bedding, or a tablecloth. In temples and gurudwaras, walls, figures or holy writings were decorated with phulkaris or baghs. In colonial times, sometimes a bagh was presented to a British official at Christmas, together with fruit and sweetmeats. And if a woman died before her husband, a phulkari sash would be used to wrap her body.

With the exception of some outlying villages in which baghs and phulkaris are still made, this kind of craftsmanship and handiwork is almost entirely a thing of the past. Recent attempts by the Indian and Pakistani governments to restore the tradition have had little effect. When one realises that a trained embroiderer required about five hundred hours to complete a bagh (three to four months at four to five hours daily), it is not hard to see why. Life has become complicated for Punjabis, not least because of the partition of their homeland and the vast movements of population that accompanied it. Instead of occupy¬ing themselves in the afternoons with conversation and handiwork, the women now go to schools and colleges. Cinema, radio, television, artificial fibres, industrial dyes and the influence of western styles of dress have all caused interest in embroidery to lapse.

S.S. Hitkari, author of Phulkari - Folk Art of Punjab (Delhi 1980) closes his book with an optimistic look into the future:

"All that has been born must pass; it is not worth shedding tears over it. The sen¬sitivity and creativity inbred in the Punjab women will certainly find new forms of expression. Folk art never stagnates, but always finds itself developing. So let us hope that in the course of time something as unique and as fascinating as the Phulkari will exist. Until then it remains for us to save what is left over from destruction and keep it for the new world."

---

COPYRIGHT 2000 Michael Beste , All rights reserved.
No portion of this article nor the accompanying illustrations can or may be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.

---