Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A group of 35 students of Guru Nanak Dev Architecture College, Amritsar visited Gauhar Mahal in the city to learn about the historical importance of 1000-year-old Bagh Print from President's Award winner Master craftsman Mohammad Umar Faruk Khatri.
Khatri gave detailed information to the students about the block print, colour combination, tie and dye. He said that the print is about a thousand years old. His father Ismail Suleman Khatri started the work to preserve the traditional print of Madhya Pradesh. In the first few years, it became quite popular and people liked it a lot. But as soon as the era of synthetic textiles came in the 60s, the work of print stopped completely. But his father continued the struggle and continued working on preserving the print. After that he started working on sarees, bedsheets and then Bagh print came into vogue. It is the result of his tireless efforts that nowadays the Print is liked not only in the country but also abroad too.
It was part of ongoing ‘Bagh Utsav’ which will remain open for visitors till March 3 from 12pm-10pm.
Use 256 types of blocks
Umar Faruk Khatri said that Bagh Print is known all over the world as the identity of handicrafts of Madhya Pradesh. He showed the students the stole of Bagh Print in the printing of which 256 types of blocks are used. The special thing is that, no block was repeated in one stole. He said it took about three years to prepare this 256 block stole, in which different types of blocks were designed for the stole. He said that 34 years ago my father had prepared a unique sheet, in which 1284 blocks of the print were used.
