The Karchobi embroiderers of Marehra

About 65 kilometres from Aligarh is the town of Marehra where women do beaded embroidery on cushion covers, table mats and other decorative items meant for export and sold in home decor stores abroad. Photo: Meher Ali

 

Rifat Bano (30) sits on the brick floor of her home in Marehra, Etah, chatting with her sister Sabina and their two nieces. Between them is a snow-white satin cloth stretched tautly on a rectangular wooden frame. 

Her hands move at a habitual pace: one places an index-finger-length hooked needle, filled with white and silver beads, on a specific point in the cloth panel. As the needle goes through the cloth, the hand underneath guides a plastic wire to latch onto the needle’s hooked tip, which pierces the cloth. As the needle withdraws, it stitches the bead onto the cloth.
 

This is Karchobi ka kaam or Karchobi work, a style of beaded embroidery that, according to noted historian Professor Irfan Habib, is an import from Iran that came to India around the 17th century. 

 

A more commercialized form of this craft was introduced in Marehra about 20-25 years ago by a man named Ajmeri. Embroiderers says that Ajmeri had relatives in Sikandra Rao and learned the work there and then brought it to Marehra, where he was from. Continue reading on Twocircles.net.