Darshan Shaw in Calcutta

Today (November 8) was all about Darshan Shah, entrepreneur, force-of-nature, textile maven, who has begun a weaving cooperative here in Calcutta (the reason for our visit to this city) and whose workshop and sales room we ravaged today. In the morning at Darshan’s factory space, we learned about woodblock printing, dye resist printing, shibori, Indian weaving techniques and toured her new facilities in an “industrial” park on the outskirts of Calcutta. Her new six floor building is not quite completed, but there was enough finished for us to see four floors filled with workers making lovely pieces. She served us a fantastic lunch and afterward we went to her sales space where as you can imagine we pulled every garment and fabric off the shelves. Shawls, kurtas, Darshan’s outfit – all were special-ordered for delivery to us in Delhi at the end of our trip.

Tomorrow we have breakfast a 4:15am for departure at 5am for Varanasi and ultimately Sarnath. I’m off to bed!