As an Indian growing up in London, I never really felt connected to India. I visited family often but felt nothing. In my early twenties, I went back to explore regions I had never seen — the vibrancy, the culture and the parts of my heritage I'd somehow never thought to look for.
A trip to Jaipur was part of it. I remember being mesmerised by the precision of a block printing workshop — the quiet concentration, the way an intricate pattern emerged from something as simple as carved wood and steady hands. I came home with a completely different sense of who I was and where I was from.
That memory stayed in the back of my mind for years. Then, unexpectedly, I came across an article about traditional crafts disappearing across India. Skills that had survived for centuries being given up. Factories were faster. Cheaper. Easier to scale. And one by one, the workshops fell silent.
