In Patiala, the thriving craft of phulkari

Shashi Rupeja is not completely sure but she does think she first caught her husband’s eye while she was embroidering. “He must have seen me threading phulkari and thought I was hardworking,” Shashi says laughing at the happy memory, a half-finished phulkari piece in her hands.

It is a winter’s day in Punjab and Shashi is sitting with her friend Bimla in her neighbourhood, enjoying the mild winter sun. Their hands are busy as they chit-chat, discussing their everyday lives. But their attention never wavers from the sharp needles they hold with coloured threads that are making phulkari patterns on the cloth.

“There was a time when women in every household here would embroider phulkari pieces,” says the 56-year-old resident of Patiala city, as she adds another careful stitch to the flower she had been embroidering on a red dupatta.

Phulkari is an embroidery style with floral patterns and is commonly used on garments like dupatta, salwar kameez and saree. The design is first traced on the garment with ink using carved wooden blocks. Artisans then embroider in and around the markings with colourful silk and cotton threads sourced locally from Patiala city.

“Our locality Tripuri has always been famous for phulkari,” says Shashi, who moved from neighbouring Haryana to Punjab’s Patiala district when she got married nearly four decades ago. Shashi was 18 years old when she had come to visit her sister married in Tripuri, and learnt phulkari “simply by observing the women here," she says. A year or so later, Shashi herself was married to Vinod Kumar who was a local resident.

Phulkari, for which Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan received a Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2010, is commonly practiced by women in this region who are seeking to work from home. They usually form collectives of 20-50 artisans and divide the commissioned embroidery work.

“These days, only a few continue to make phulkari pieces by hand,” says Shashi. The cheaper machine-made embroidery is slowly taking over. Even so, the markets are teeming with the craft – in Tripuri there are numerous shops in the main market that sell phulkari garments, both hand- and machine-made.

Shashi received her first earnings from the craft at the age of 23. She bought and embroidered 10 sets of salwar kameez and sold them to local customers, earning a total of Rs. 1,000. Embroidering phulkari has supported her household through tough times, Shashi says – “Besides educating the children, there were many expenses.”

Shashi’s husband was a tailor and facing losses when she first began working. When his health deteriorated and he was forced to work less, Shashi took charge. “When my husband returned home from a pilgrimage, he was surprised to find that I had changed the setting of his tailoring shop,” Shashi says, recalling how she had removed his sewing machine and added threads and blocks for tracing designs. She accomplished all this with her savings of Rs. 5,000.

The seasoned embroiderer recalls travelling to busy areas like Lahori Gate in Patiala city to sell phulkari-embroidered goods crafted by her. She even took the train to Ambala district 50 kms away to sell door-to-door. “With my husband, I organised exhibitions of phulkari garments in Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Karnal,” Shashi adds. Eventually tiring of the hectic schedule, she moved out of her sales role and now embroiders as a hobby. Her son, 35-year-old Deepanshu Rupeja manages the business of selling phulkari garments and works with artisans across Patiala.

“Handmade phulkari garments remain much in demand despite the advent of machine-embroidered pieces,” Deepanshu notes. Other than the finesse, the difference between the two styles is also in their pricing. A handcrafted phulkari dupatta is sold for Rs. 2,000, but a machine-made one fetches a price between Rs. 500-Rs. 800.

“We pay artisans based on the number of flowers embroidered and the complexity of the design,” Deepanshu explains. The remuneration also depends on the skill of the artisan – ranging from Rs. 3 to Rs. 16 for every embroidered flower.

One of the artisans Deepanshu works with is 55-year-old Balwinder Kaur. A resident of Patiala district’s Miyal village, Balwinder travels to Deepanshu’s shop in Tripuri – some 30 kms away – about 3-4 times every month. There she receives threads and garments with inked phulkari designs over which she embroiders.

Balwinder says she can place 100 flowers on a salwar kameez in just two days. “No one formally taught me to embroider phulkari,” says Balwinder, who has been practising this craft since she was 19 years old. “My family did not own any land nor did we have a government job,” says Balwinder, who has three children. Her husband used to be a daily wage worker but was unemployed when she first began working.

Balwinder recalls her mother saying, “hun jo teri kismat hai tenu mil geya hai. Hun kujh na kujh kar, tey kha [You've got what's in your fate. Now do any work you find, and feed yourselves].” Some of her acquaintances would take up bulk orders for phulkari embroidery from garment sellers in Tripuri. “I told them that I needed money and asked if they would let me embroider a dupatta. And they did.”

Initially when Balwinder was commissioned garments for phulkari, sellers would seek a security deposit from her. She would often have to deposit a substantial sum of Rs. 500. But soon, “the sellers gained trust in my skill,” says Balwinder, adding that now every major seller of phulkari garments in Tripuri knows her. “There is no dearth of work," Balwinder says. She is now commissioned about 100 pieces to embroider every month and has even built a collective of phulkari artisans to whom she passes on some of the work. “I do not wish to depend on anyone,” she adds.

When Balwinder started working nearly 35 years ago, she used to earn Rs. 60 for embroidering a dupatta. Now she earns about Rs. 2,500 for one requiring intricate work. Some of Balwinder’s hand-embroidered pieces are carried as gifts by people travelling abroad. “My work travels to many countries – America, Canada. I feel good that my work is going to foreign countries even when I haven't gone there myself,” she says with pride.

This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).