The Calico Museum is the gift and houses the collection of the Sarabhai family, early supporters of Gandhi’s movement in India. It’s an estate with peaceful gardens, water, mosaics, peacocks and parrots and rooms which house a collection of textiles that is unbelievable. From all the states of India there is very distinctive and beautiful handwork—weaving, appliqué, trapunto, Batik, block printing, tie dye. So much to take in, to enjoy, to study, but there are rules!

The tour is given once a day to 15 people who make reservations and 15 people who line up early to get in (that would be Veena and me). At 10:30 the guard opens the little door (duck your head) within the big door (think fortress) and tells you where to stand and where to move to. No one smiles. No cameras, no phones, no water, no bags. Sign here, get your admission ticket. Sign here, we’re taking your possessions, here’s your claim check. Now sit there. No not there. Here. Now get up and move. Follow the path and there are guides to make sure you do not wander.

Once inside, sit down here. One by one we are led to a desk to sign again—for the record of who’s visited, but it feels like we’re signing a legal document. Now go back and sit down again. Next. Get up time to go. This little woman who really makes you think of military personalities lines us up and we are given our first instructions. The tour will end at exactly 12:30. We are to stay together. We only have moments to see each group of textiles, as for their protection the lights will be turned off after our limited viewing time.

It’s not quite running, but it’s certainly moving quickly. Imagine say 30 of the largest and most intricate tapestries you can imagine and you have 2 minutes to take it in—while you’re walking! The group exchanged many looks and smiles about the sternness and precision of our tour—so there was bonding. She entertained very few questions—I think we all knew that we’d use up all our time if we started on that and she would certainly have a way of snuffing that idea anyway.

Our guide, who never introduced herself—I’m sure she would have said that this wasn’t about her, was fabulous at helping us understand the artist and really emphasized that this is where the attention needed to be given. I’ll try to recreate to give you the flavor:

“This illiterate person is presented with an idea and given a length of cloth. He (now that I’m writing I can’t think if she said this was something that men did or women) holds the fabric up to the sunlight and counts the threads. He thinks of many ideas and looks for inspiration around him. In his mind he begins to fill the cloth with designs and images. He decides what stitches will best tell the story in his head. He chooses his thread and delicately picks up 3 stitches across and 3 stitches down and he begins. His life is poured into what he creates. And one stitch follows the other for months or years.”

We traveled once more through the traffic of Ahmedabad to the bus station. 3.5 hours and agricultural scenes and a bad bollywood movie and we arrived in Rajkot.