Sometime in the mid-1990s, during a trip Praful and I made to Jaipur, we came upon a small group of chainstitch embroideries which, quite instantly, swept us off our feet. We were in the home of one of the city's most reputed textile dealers, who, carefully unwrapping the muslin covers one by one, unrolled before us a cache of breathtakingly beautiful embroideries. In disbelief, we gazed at each of the intricately wrought textiles, bearing, what we thought then, the unmistakable hallmark of Mughal design sensibility— naturalistically tilting flower-heads, curving stems and leaves—the combined delicacy of drawing, choice of colours and skilful execution.

Could it actually be true that we were gazing at Mughal embroideries? For textile collectors like ourselves, to chance upon even one subtly worked embroidery of the Mughal period was nothing short of a stroke of providence. We had been transfixed by the exquisitely embroidered imperial riding coat in the Victoria and Albert Museum. We had marvelled at the artistic Mughal qanat panels in the Calico Museum. Here, we felt certain, was our opportunity to own such a master-work. We took home a splendid group of five patkas and three floor-spreads (Pl. nos 80–87). No provenance was available to be shared, as was the case with most dealers in India.

The first seeds of doubt as to their authenticity emerged when Mughal-style embroidered qanat panels started appearing sporadically in international auction catalogues, always accompanied by an equally vague provenance. Some were even acquired by museums as genuine Mughal works, or as 19th-century pieces. Although the embroidery on these pieces was superb, the colours used were not those found in genuine Mughal embroideries, favouring instead distinctively dark shades of green and red. The possibility that fakes were coming onto the market was flagged up in 2001 in Hali magazine by Steven Cohen, who pointed out the differences between genuine 17th and 18th-century Mughal embroideries and these new pieces, mentioning in particular the anomalous colour palette, the ground fabric, which although hand-woven is too uniform to pre-date the 20th century, and the general clumsiness of the drawing of the modern pieces when compared to the grace of the originals. Furthermore, as Cohen noted, it is noticeable that all the green areas of these embroideries have retained their colour, whereas in authentic Mughal-period embroideries the over-dyed yellow has often disappeared, leaving the green leaves and stems as blue.

Today, we are so much the wiser. The Mughal-style textiles that had so excited us 25 years ago were not made for a Mughal-era patron. We now know that they were the handiwork of one Gulshan Khan of Jaipur. In the 1980s Gulshan had made a name as a master restorer of antique carpets and textiles. He was the go-to specialist who could be relied on to salvage rare and severely damaged pieces. Thanks to having handled such antique textiles, he had the opportunity to learn and imbibe first-hand knowledge of the types of cloth to work on, the stitches, threads and colours to be used and above all, to adopt and replicate Mughal style compositions.

Around 1990, Gulshan came into contact with one Chaman Khan, with whom he developed the business of making such 'antique' textiles, using high-count hand-spun cotton and vegetable dyes. Their pieces, including hangings of Shrinathji, were sold to Ahmedabad dealers, who in turn sold them on to Delhi dealers. A few years later, Gulshan died in a motor-bike accident. His brother, who was also a textile restorer, died of cancer. Chaman continued to craft Mughalized designs, but, by then, word had got around that these works were not real antiques. Chaman Khan received an award in 2005 for his outstanding embroidery skills. After he passed away in 2015, his son Tariq Khan continues his occupation in Jaipur as an embroiderer of decorative textiles, as does Gulshan's son Taj Hussain.

Fine chain-stitch embroidery continues to be made today by several gifted craftspeople. Ahmedabad-based embroiderer Asif Shaikh has forged an international presence as well as a reputation within India for meticulously crafted hand embroidery. Completely self-taught, and not from a Mochi community, Shaikh first became known for his fine aari work but has since branched out into other types of embroidery. He established his own brand in 2002, providing luxury embroidered garments and intricately embroidered artworks for an urban clientele, as well as exhibiting in international exhibitions and receiving several international awards.

Also in Ahmedabad, Arun Virgamya has been running an aari-bharat workshop for the past 15 years, making chain-stitched artefacts, and in particular, Shrinathji hangings for Vaishnava patrons in Mumbai and Gujarat (see Pl. nos 89, 90). His late father, Vajubhai Virgamya, was a zari puranawala who bought old and worn zarikasab, metal-wrapped antique textiles, making money by extracting the silver wire. If the condition of the textile was good, he would sell it for its antique value. Occasionally, they would get old mochi-work embroidered ghaghras and costumes. His uncle, Shaileshbhai Virgamya, along with zari-kasab, dealt in antique textiles and took orders for aari-bharat. He took Arun under his wing. They employed Muslim zardozi craftsmen from Agra and Lucknow. His uncle has now retired, leaving Arun to run the studio. Apart from pichhwais, Arun makes hangings and ghaghras and undertakes commissions for his customers. None of his workers belong to the Mochi community, and most of them are Muslim. As of 2021, they are paid Rs.700 to Rs. 800 per day for a 7 to 8 hours of work. Besides the TAPI Collection, his pieces have been collected by Umang Hatheesingh, Amit Ambalal, the Calico Museum and others. Asked about how he sees the future of his business, and the challenges faced, he is largely optimistic, but says retaining his trained craftsmen is a singular challenge. He would like his two sons Sandeep, 17, and Sahil, 15, to join him and expand the business after they finish their education.

After a series of migratory shifts from village to small-town and big-city, the non-Mochi, Muslim artisan family of the master-craftsman Adam Sangar set up home and workshop in Bhuj. While not yet in their teens, Kasam and Juma, the two sons of Adam Sangar, were groomed for the craft of aari-embroidery by their father in Mandvi. The late Sangar, whose works exist in museum collections, forged a new style, introducing narrative elements into his chainstitch compositions. Thanks to a design initiative undertaken by the Australian designer Carol Douglas in aid of Kutchi artisans following the devastating earthquake of 2001, Adam Sangar's works showed scenes with landscapes and figures from daily life executed in chain stitch. His aari-work embroideries gave a new, unconventional dimension to aari-work practice, which his sons have adopted in their design repertoire after the death of their father in 2009 (Pl. nos 94– 96). The fact that the Sangars are Muslim has not deterred them from either making or selling pichhwais of the Hindu God Shrinathji. After Adam Sangar's death, Kasam, Juma and his third son Mohammed Irshad, his widow Hazarabai and daughter Rahima Adam Sangar, have carried on the family enterprise.

The Shrujan Museum and Living and Learning Design Centre in Bhuj is a local, not-for-profit body established by the late Mrs Chanda Shroff to showcase the richness and diversity of the indigenous embroideries of Kutch. Their museum collection encompasses old and new domestic embroideries crafted by Kutchi artisans, among which is a celebrated mochiwork portrait of Gandhiji by Hansrajbhai Jethabhai Bharatwala (see Appendix 1), who received a gold medal and certificate at both the Mysore Dasara Exhibition of 1933 and the All-India Swadeshi Fair and Exhibition held in Calicut in December 1934. In its initiative to revive the basic technique of mochi-bharat, the Shrujan team works with women of the Mochi community in the district of Banaskantha, bordering Kutch. The Shrujan Museum exhibits chain-stitch hangings executed more recently by artisans outside Kutch. From the group of NGOs that have formed the Kutch Craft Collective to assist and empower rural women of Kutch to pursue traditional crafts, Shrujan has made significant headway with developing mochi-work pieces which they help market through their own outlets and exhibitions.

In Mumbai, the young entrepreneur Shobhit Mody employs 70 artisans conversant with both aari-bharat and zardozi embroidery in a workshop situated within his factory premises. A devout Vaishnavite, he makes pichhwais combining digital images with chain-stitch embroidery, adding pearls and sequins for greater impact. A number of Pushti Marg havelis, such as the Lalluji Maharaj haveli in Surat, are recipients of his pichhwais, as are customers of his own Vallabhacharya sect in India and their diasporic counterparts abroad.

Whither Mochis and mochi-bharat of yesteryear?

The bells have tolled for mochi-work in Bhuj's Mochi Sheri, the street that had once blazed the unstoppable trail of mochibharat, 400 years after the first groups of Mochis took up residence there. Whereas prior to the 2001 earthquake, Mochi Street had 30–40 Mochi families residing there, it now has just four, and sadly, for the past 70 years, has been bereft of a single practitioner of the stitch-craft associated with their name. Karsandas Gopalji Jhansari (1843–1937/38) was the last Mochi embroiderer in the service of the Kutch Maharao Khengarji III (r. 1876–1942), who was given the high honour of tying the Maharao's turban on ceremonial occasions. The last professional mochi-work craftsman celebrated for his consummate skill, a winner of numerous certificates and awards between 1933 and 1949, was Hansraj Jethabhai Bharatwala (1908–1966); (Appendix 1), the grandson of the famed embroiderer Ramji Parshottam Bharatwala and the elder of the two sons of Bharatwala Jethabhai Ramji. The embroidery shop established by Ramji Parshottam in 1866 still stands in the same place on Mochi Street in Shroff Bazaar. Praising the embroidered specimens exhibited by Hansrajbhai's grandfather at the famous Exhibition of Indian Art held in Delhi in 1902–1903, George Watt, in his catalogue, writes, 'Ramji Proshottam [sic] Mochi of Bhuj exhibits an attractive series of Bhuj embroidered skirts…' (See Appendix 3). In 1957, during a two-day stop Bhuj, John Irwin had visited Ramji's very shop, of which he reported, 'they nowadays make and sell only machine embroidery, and I saw three employees engaged in this work.' Ten years later, when Irwin revisited Bhuj in 1967 he lamented, 'The Mochi embroidery of Kutch has very much declined in quality over the last seventy years. The craft is now reduced to the point where only two sons of Ramji Jethabhai remain capable of carrying on the technique with any measure of professional skill. Undaunted by this situation, the Jethabhai brothers are now training a group of women in what has hitherto been an exclusive male occupation…'

(Excerpted with permission from Shilpa Shah & Rosemary Crill's 'The Shoemaker's Stitch'; published by Niyogi Books)