Bagru is located 30 kms southwest of Jaipur along Ajmer Highway. The Chhippa community has been hand block printing in Bagru for about 350 years, developing a unique process with natural vegetable dyes. The Bagru Chhipa community migrated from Jaipur and settled in the Bagru area near the Sanjaria River because it provided the necessary water for printing and chikni mitti, an important ingredient in Dabu mud. Even though the river dried up 20 years ago, many printing families still reside in the area called Chhippa Mohalla (the printers’ quarters). There are two main types of hand block printing in Bagru … Bagru printing and Dabu. Prints of Bagru are acclaimed all over India and are particularly known as Bagru prints. The prints of Bagru, unlike other prints, involve a different kind of printing. The unique method for printing employs wooden block in it. In the process, the desired design is engraved on the wooden block first and then the carved block is used for replicating the design in the preferred colour on the fabric. Bagru prints are more famous for their exceptional quality of being eco-friendly. Even today, artisans use traditional vegetable dyes for printing the cloth. Like, the colour blue is made from indigo, greens out of indigo mixed with pomegranate, red from madder root and yellow from turmeric. Usually, Bagru prints have ethnic floral patterns in natural colours. Bagru prints form the essential part of the block printing industry of Rajasthan.
Bagru Printing Process:
1. The fabric is pre-washed and soaked for 24 hours to remove all starch, oil, dust, or any other contaminants.
2. The fabric is “yellow” dyed in a harda solution, which allows the natural dyes to adhere to the fabric and become colourfast. Harda is extracted from fruits of the myrobalan plant (terminlia chebula). The yellow dyed fabric is dried in open fields under the bright Indian sun. The fabric is now a yellowish cream colour (unique to the Bagru printing process) and is ready for printing.
3. The yellow dyed fabric is spread and smoothed on long padded printing tables. The printing always moves from left to right. The printer gently taps the wooden block in a tray of the proper coloured dye. He then applies the block to the fabric carefully lining up the corners correctly and gives one hard swift hit to the centre of the block to ensure even distribution of the dye. This is repeated over and over again, first with the gadh block (background), and again with the rehk (fine outlines) and daata (inside filling) blocks in different colours.
4. After all the printing is complete, the fabric is left to dry for 2-3 days before it is washed. Once the fabric is thoroughly dried, it is boiled in a large copper pot with a mixture of natural ingredients, including alum and various flowers. The fabric is constantly stirred as it is boiled to keep the fabric from burning on the bottom of the pot. After boiling the fabric is once again washed to remove any excess dyes or dirt, and again dried in the sun. The block printed fabric is finally ready to be packaged and sold.
