SHOPPER'S PARADISE
The Arts
of the Land
When you take a land and fill it with people who love celebrations, and
whose love for colour is unparalleled , even while it is sophisticated in
its simplicity, chances are you will come across a range of arts and carafts
that meets with their particular needs. It isn't an unfair assumption in
the case of rajasthan.
The bazzars spill with produce and there is a magnificent glow of colours
that permeates the marts and spills over to the people themselves, There
is nothing that is subtle about it either.
SHOPPING IN MAJOR TOWNS
While approved shops in many of the towns you visit in Rajasthan are
an antiseptic but safe way of checking out what the stores offer, the tend
to carry similar carfts, Therefore, please ask your escorts or travel agent
to guide you to the parts of the city where the local people shop for an
authentic flovour of the region;s crafts and the ambience of each shopping
zone.
BIKANER : - Best for camel products that include leather footwear,
and its brilliant gesso work, Wool carpets and blankets, light cotton quilts,
and brilliantly dyed cotton fabrics can be tracked down in the maze of tiny
shops around Kot Gate with KEM Raod providing the shopping in larger stores.
CHITTAURGARH : - Know for its wooden painted toys make in the
surrounding villages and thewa gold jewellery in its own distinctive style
Also Akola printed fabrics and leather juttees make in Gangrar.
JAIPUR:- When Sawai Jai Singh II laid out his city, he took great
care to invite artisans and craftspersons to come and settle here , and
recognising the need for family life ,created proper grids where they could
settle, rather thant serve at the royal ateliers. While a visit to the Rajasthan
Handicarfts Emporium called Rajasthali offers you a taste of everything
Rajasthan, does increasingly visitor5s want to visit designer storers
that use ancient techniques to give them a contemporary flovour as in the
case of Anokhi and Soma
JAISALMER : - The Local tradition
of carving is best seen in little wooden boxes that are intricately pierced
in exciting patterns and motifs, Also woollen and cotton rugs and blankets,
embroidered fabrics, silver jewellery.
JODHPUR : - Once brides came here for their trousseau shopping beacause
the dyes and prints were resplenden, and the lame work brilliant, The same
fabrics can still be found in the bazaars, and you may want to try on a
sportly pair of Jodhpurs. Badalas or zinc alloy pitchers used to carry water,
covered with falted cloth were an earlier version of today's water flask.
KOTA : - Best know for it,s small checked weave cotton sarees called
Kota doriyas in light floral prints.
PUSHKAR - During the November fai, the mela is a bewildering array
of shops with fabrics embroideries, utensils, terracotta pots, trinkets
silver jewellery, camel saddles blankets, shawls, beads, babgles and other
baubles.
UDAIPUR : - One of the principal shopping zones outside Jaipur
here are a myriad shops with paintings of the miniature and pichwai variety,
as well as terracotta tables and plaques there are also locally dyed fabrics
and textiles, embroideries, wooden toys, white metal objets dart silver
enamet artefacts, and images of Krishna in tthe Nathdwara style.
