Connecting Threads from Tradition to Modern – The SUJANI of Gujarat

India features amongst the culturally affluent countries in the world as far as art and culture is concerned. It is a manufacturing hub of varied kinds of handicrafts, which are popular even in international markets and are known for its ethnicity. The country is fortunate enough to possess some highly skilled artisans. Each state of the country has some or other things characteristic to their region. They have augmented the fame of Indian handicrafts around the globe. Many rural people still earn their livelihood from their creative pieces of art. Gujarat is blessed with rich and vibrant tradition of handicrafts. It is widely differing in its proportions of its patterns to the element of wonderful exquisite artefacts in various forms. It is unique with diverse arts and crafts, merged with aesthetic appeal. Hand woven fabrics of any given time and space reflect and preserve in them the results of centuries of experiments of man under various circumstances; they carry forms and techniques which remain relatively unchanged or unaffected over generations. The state has been popular for its embroidered, woven and printed traditional cloth. Of these “Sujani†- hand woven textiles can be considered as exquistive traditional textile which has its root in the “Bharuch†region of the state. Bharuch is the main centre of the Sujani craft with regular and continuous production throughout the year. It may be rightly said that handicraft of Sujani weaving is essentially an off-shoot of the handloom industry of Bharuch. It is a woven quilt with double weave technique. The distinctive feature of this fabric is that it is stuffed with cotton fibres in the form of small squares to give a padded effect while it is still on the loom. This makes it different from the other quilts which are stuffed with cotton fibres after the cloth has been removed from the looms and quilted with needle and thread.