A new creative platform for Himalayan communities

A new festival hopes to create a common platform for craft, art and heritage of communities from the Himalaya

- Abhilasha Ojha

As a student at the National Institute of Design, Aratrik Dev Varman—now in his 40s—strongly felt that the risha, or the traditional breast cloth worn by the women of Tripura, needed to be revived. Later, when he founded Tilla in 2011 in Ahmedabad, a design studio that celebrates handmade Indian textiles and crafts, he built on this idea by collecting some of the archival pieces. In the process, Varman noticed that the loin loom was disappearing and women were no longer weaving in traditional cotton and silk.

“The risha was a symbol of women’s independence in Tripura. It lost its relevance, particularly during the British era, when it was deemed unseemly as it just covered the breasts. Over time, women started favouring sarees and blouses over the risha,” he says.

Varman, who hails from Tripura, chanced upon this textile while he was scouting for a subject for his project at the NID, Ahmedabad, in the early 2000s. What started as research became a passion project, with the designer collecting original pieces from various tribes and members of the erstwhile royal family. “My goal continues to bring back into the mainstream conversation around visual arts and textiles,” he says.

To start that dialogue, Varman and his colleague Jisha Unnikrishnan have created a 15-feet-long installation at the Travancore Palace, New Delhi. Suspended from the ceiling, the work is an ode to the indigenous communities of Tripura, which used to weave and wear this cloth.