Making Kantha, Making Home

Оглавление

Pika Ghosh. Making Kantha, Making Home

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION

Introduction. Kantha, Comfort, and Canon

CANONS, CONSTRAINTS, AND MISFITS

FABRICATING DOMESTICITY

KANTHA AND THE MARITIME TRADE IN COLCHAS

LISTENING FOR WOMEN’S VOICES

CHAPTER 1. Layers, Thickness, and Resonance. Making Home, Making Whole

MANY HANDS, HOMES, AND IMAGINARY HOMELANDS

TRANSITIONS AND COPING MECHANISMS

INTERIORITY, INTIMACY, AND RAPTURE

CONFIGURING OWNERSHIP

CONSTRUCTING LINEAGES

RESONANT TRACES

CHAPTER 2. Manadasundari’s Gift. Worlds in the Household

EMBROIDERING ON EMPIRE

MIXING MESSAGES AND MEDIA

FASHIONING FACADES

CONSTRUCTING THE BABU

SYCOPHANTS, ATTENDANTS, AND DEPENDENTS

LOOKING FOR MANADASUNDARI

CHAPTER 3. Kamala’s Mandala. A Space of One’s Own

LANDSCAPES OF INTERIORITY

AT HARI’S FEET

ENTANGLED BODIES AND FANTASTIC HORSES

PLEASURE RIDES AND MASQUERADES

INTIMATE MIRACLES

A SPACE OF ONE’S OWN

Conclusion. Some Loose Ends

NOTES

CHAPTER 1. LAYERS, THICKNESS, AND RESONANCE: MAKING HOME, MAKING WHOLE

CHAPTER 2. MANADASUNDARI’S GIFT: WORLDS IN THE HOUSEHOLD

CHAPTER 3. KAMALA’S MANDALA: A SPACE OF ONE’S OWN

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Отрывок из книги

Padma Kaimal

K. Sivaramakrishnan

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I.15. Kamala’s kantha. Attributed to nineteenth century. Collected by Stella Kramrisch. 95.2 × 95.3 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Stella Kramrisch, 1994-148-705.

Their narratives, moreover, elide the complex processes of acquiring textiles that once belonged in homes and families, often with the names of makers, recipients, and personal messages in visual and textual stitched form. As they laid the groundwork, creating awareness through collecting kantha, housing the material in newly established museums and curating exhibitions, ironically, the voice and valorization of kantha as a women’s spiritual practice was predominantly from an elite male intellectual cohort. As art historian Debashish Banerji has reminded us, Abanindranath Tagore acquired material for such work from the women of his intimate family circle in the Jorasanko household and through observation of the practices of its women.68 Likewise, the pioneering efforts of Saroj Nalini Dutt toward institutionalizing vocational training for women, including sewing, weaving, and embroidery, is hardly a footnote in studies of Bengali history;69 the enthusiasm of her husband, Gurusaday Dutt, on the other hand, is noted assiduously in analyses of women’s upliftment efforts. If the scholarship on the manifold collaborations between colonial anthropologist and native informant has been the subject of intense scholarly scrutiny, such intimate alliances equally complicate the prevailing picture of male scholars speaking on behalf of vast numbers of women, who remain unacknowledged, and often unnamed. Furthermore, if predominantly male-authored ideologies were projected on the body and sphere of influence of Bengali women, not all Bengali women were so privileged. Rather, it was unambiguously the woman who was married, bore children, and took care of the family and household.70 Younger girls, prostitutes, unmarried or widowed women, and other women who did not fit the dominant image of the Bengali woman as wife and mother were excluded from the idealization that was simultaneously under construction.71

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