How One Town Keeps A 5,000-Year-Old Ajrak Tradition Alive In Pakistan | Still Standing

[Music] the custom of making a truck goes back 5000 years it's a unique form of block printing and it's an important part of the culture in southern pakistan sindh province the traditional method involves some unusual ingredients like camel and cow dung but these days customers are buying cheaper machine made copies of these trolls we visited the small town of pitcher to see how one traditional ajrak workshop is still standing imran sumro started learning how to make a jerk from his father when he was 10 and they still work together today [Music] it all starts with stiff pure cotton called koda [Music] workers take the cloth to a nearby stream for its very first wash they slap the cloth against the river banks repeatedly to squeeze out any excess water every single step is done by hand so it can take almost a month to make one shot then it's time for the most famous ingredient gessy canals used to be common in picture but these days workers from a nearby town deliver the dung every day it's mixed with water baking soda and mustard oil to form a paste called saaj that's what gives adruk its musty smell and eventually makes the colors pop it takes a full bucket to soak 25 sheets they dunk the fabric into the sudge [Music] then coil it again and again to soak up the paste the cloth is soaked and dried at least four times before it goes back into the river for another wash [Music] but they never let the fabric fully dry [Music] after after the raw fabric is treated for four to five days it's finally ready to be stamped one artisan creates the outline on all 40 pieces in the patch there are only three to four traditional patterns that are still in use today but the workshop can customize designs a skilled block printer can finish 10 to 12 pieces in a day but the hard work doesn't always pay off [Music] to big money workshop costs up to 50 but you can pick up a machine version for about one dollar still many people can't tell the difference between real and fake utrecht but there are some signs imran says that's because they don't use any chemical dyes workers fill the outline with black color it starts to give the edrug its signature look then a worker stamps an herbal paste all over the cloth so that dried cow dung can stick to the fabric this process known as car protects sections of the a-drug that shouldn't be dyed now the fabric is ready for its first die slowly each a drug is dipped into this bubbly dye until it turns a deep navy workers take out the soaked sheets and lay them in the sun before they're washed again [Music] the next stage demands a strong fire imran's father muhammad fills a bhatti or clay oven with water along with alizarin pigment and an herb known as sakuna organic [Music] [Music] then muhammad repeatedly dips the adruk into boiling water more and more pieces go into the patty and eventually they're all left to simmer for at least an hour imran checks the pot regularly to make sure each piece is fully submerged other pieces are dyed in smaller pots the patterns start to appear a worker lays out the air drug by the river the next morning then the fabric is dyed block printed and washed again to enhance the colors [Music] each step leaves its mark with the stark crimson contrasting with the indigo black and white archaeological records show that adrak has been made in sindh for over 5000 years it dates back to one of the earliest civilizations of the indus valley where hinduism buddhism and jainism flourished priest kings wore the fabric over their shoulders in the ancient city of mohenjo-daro in sindh [Music] today shawls like these are sold throughout pakistan but sindh is still the heart of the craft [Music] there are about a hundred workshops in this part of the province that still make a drug the traditional way growing up imran learned about legendary adruk artisans and some even belonged to his own family buddha but the glory days of this ancient craft are long gone cheaper mass-produced shawls have taken over the market below another change they've started selling directly to consumers instead of just to local shops which kept some of the profits online [Music] foreign generations unlimited you

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 3,567,831

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, Sindh, Block printing, India, Craft, Artisans, Clothes-making

Id: Alpzrs4tTaA

Length: 9min 51sec (591 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 28 2022

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[u/BlandBiryani]

Alternate title:

How artisans in Sindh are keeping 5,000-year-old block printing alive

Despite cheap, machine-made copies flooding the market, Imran Soomro and his family are determined to keep the craft alive in Bhit Shah, Pakistan.

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Link to the Soomro artisans' FB page.

[u/InjectorTheGood]

So, they were using oonth ka gobar to create ajrak all this time?

[u/sahduk]

Ayy soomros keeping the tradition going.

[u/James324285241990]

I just ordered 4 ajrak from this guy and they're lovely. They're heavy and well made, and he shipped them all the way from bhit shah to Dallas in 2 weeks.

I highly recommend him and his associates