Sitting on the floor, Abdul Hamid carefully twists a thick spool of yellow paint around a metal pin. Stretched out before him is a piece of red cloth, pinned on either side to the legs of his trousers. He dabs the paint on the heel of his left palm — it’s a gummy mass and has to be worked into something more malleable. Hamid then brings the tip of the pin a few inches above the cloth, and as it hovers, an elastic strand of colour streams on to the surface. And the magic begins: an intricate pattern grows beneath the swirling pin that never touches the cloth. The floral design looks like needlework.
Hamid then folds the cloth and, just like that, a flawless mirror-image of the pattern appears and an exquisite piece of Rogan art is born.
“We have practised Rogan for eight generations now,” says Hamid. “The first six generations did not get their due for preserving the art, but now, finally it is widely recognised and we couldn’t be happier.”
‘Rogan’ in Persian means oil: the paint is made with castor oil. Rogan art is believed to have originated in Persia some 300 years ago and was traditionally used to embellish bridal trousseaus. As it crossed borders, it began fading from the collective memory of its creators. But nine members of the Khatri family in Nirona, a small village in Gujarat’s Kutch district, are the last surviving custodians of the art form.
The Khatri community once did Rogan work on the clothes of local animal herders and farming communities. But as machine-made textiles became a more affordable alternative and Khatri youth lost interest in learning the art, Rogan began to disappear. “But our family revived it in 1985,” says Hamid. In fact it is Hamid’s elder cousin, Abdul Gafur Khatri, a national award winner, who is credited with resurgence of Rogan art.
P.M.’s pick
The ‘Tree of Life’, an intricately patterned tree with hundreds of dots and dashes, is their signature painting and most in demand. A 14x17” painting can take 12 days to complete— Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose one to gift to the then U.S. President Barack Obama during his U.S. visit.
“Rogan art is 100% an artist’s imagination on a piece of cloth,” Gafur bhai , as he is better known, explains. “There is no tracing, no drawings to refer to.”
But preparing the base from castor oil is a laborious process and can take two days. The oil is heated and cooled in a (special) vessel and continuously stirred so it doesn’t burn. After two days, the residue left behind is mixed with cold water and it thickens into a sticky paste called rogan . Natural colour pigments are then added to the oil base. “Yellow, for instance, comes from a particular stone that is ground,” says Hamid. The pigments are added to the castor oil base and stored in earthen pots.
Wall pieces made by Abdul Gafur Khatri in Nirona village, Kutch
The nine artists have six national awards and six State awards between them. They proudly show me photographs of celebrities — politicians, film stars, sports stars — who have either bought their art work or felicitated them at awards functions.
Men last longer
It strikes me as odd that all nine members of the family working on the art form are men. This could perhaps do with the belief that women, once they get married, would pass on their knowledge to their husband’s families, threatening the art with dilution. But as Rogan faces extinction, Gafur bhai , has taken upon himself the task of teaching the technique to 200 girls from his village. And this has breathed fresh life into the dying art.
“We taught most of these girls for free. They can now create at least the basic designs,” Gafur bhai says, adding that 25 girls also help the family with their work. In another effort to popularise Rogan, the family conducts live demonstrations for every visitor at their doorstep. During the 30-minute demonstration, artists patiently answer questions and explain the techniques they use. On an average, the family gets 150 visitors a day. And between November and February, during the Rann Utsav — the Kutch desert festival — the numbers shoot up to 250 or 300.
No tough competition
Unlike other forms of textile art such as Ajrakh that face are under threat by factory-made products, Rogan faces no such competition, but meeting market demand has been a challenge.
“You will not find Rogan art the way you find other arts in the markets. It’s not because we don’t want it to go out to the people, it’s because we have limited resources,” says Gafur bhai. We go to five or six exhibitions around the country in a year, and rest of the time we are at home, working.”
It has been a long journey for the Khatri family: from reviving the art to creating public interest to recovering from the Bhuj earthquake setback. But today, they are only seeing a huge resurgence of interest.
The writer is an independent journalist based in Gujarat. When not researching her stories, she is busy spinning tales for her toddler.
