SquareShooter

I did not know that Doddagaddavalli was the birth place of legendary Vina Vidwan Shri Doraiswamy Iyengar till that time I read the Swarajya article in 2020. It maybe that I had not paid any attention to his autobiographical profile before that, or maybe I was not aware of Doddagaddavalli when I used to listen to his music, in those old tapes. Like many others, my knowledge of Hoysala temples was limited to the Belur and Halebid, the ones I visited as a dreamy 18-years old college student. The horizon expanded a bit when I “discovered” Somanathapura a decade ago. It just engulfed me when I went on the Indica sponsored TSD rally three years ago. For months after that I got hold of whatever books, articles I could get about Hoysalas and their art. In January 2020 embarked on another visit to Belur, Halebid, Somanathapura and many of the smaller, lesser known Hoysala temples. The study, the research and further visits took a backseat when the pandemic stuck. But that also was a period wh...

“Iska bavishya nahin hai” Siddharamappa Malagi said in a way that both us who were struggling to make a conversation in Hindi could understand. He is very clear that with his generation khun weaving tradition in his family would end and a slow end overall to the tradition of weaving a special choli or blouse fabric in Guleddgud, small town in Bagalkot district of Karnataka, 22 km from the famous Chalukyan capital of Badami. Malagi’s less than modest home in one of the bylanes of the village hosts four pit looms, though only one was running during much of weavers’ siesta that afternoon. The threads on the loom were vibrant green, magenta, yellow, bright and shining unlike the dull façade of the village or the drab, ordinary clothes the weavers themselves wore.  But, Malagi proudly talked about the beauty of the fabric he weaves, the purity of its silk and cotton used, and the natural indigo he used for the base blue that runs in the fabric even as other colours bring the...