“My grandfather dealt in dhurries and spices but I was less interested in business, more in collecting heritage pieces,” says Wazirbhai. In 1971, he came to Kutch and began to collect what may now be more than 1000 pieces from just 20 plus communities of Kutch. Wazirbhai’s antiques include creations from Kutch’s Muslim communities, as well as from Harijans, Meghawals, Lohanas and Memons. Among others. To call his archival pieces representative of class, caste, history and artisanal knowledge is superficial. The collection is a museum folded in cupboards. In includes kanthas of Bengal, Banjara tribal pieces, phulkaris from Punjab, some jamavars of Kashmir.
“For the last ten years, we have been selling to textile museums around the world and in the near future, we will have a museum of our own in Kutch,” says Wazirbhai.
Wazir senior and his sons meet buyers, inquisitive visitors, even tourists by appointment. With us in the room are a couple of designers from China, avidly photographing and sighing over Wazirbhai’s wares.
Photo: Saumya Sinha
A.A. Wazir looks at a pencil drawing of Karachi.
In the collection are Sindhi embroidery pieces from Karachi. Some are around 80- 90-years-old. Densely embroidered with “hurmicho” or what is popularly known as the “Sindhi stitch”. He shows us these alongside embroidered patches made by female craftspersons from the Banni district on the Kutch-Sindh border. The similarities are evident. Among them is Wazirbhai’s personal favourite. A golden-yellow salwar and tunic (patloon and cholo in Sindhi) in silk Mashru with delicate, almost baroque red-black-green embroidery on the tunic and the salwar. “I acquired this from an antique collector in the US many years back,” says Wazirbhai.
Photo: Saumya Sinha
A.A. Wazir's favourite: a cholo (tunic) salwar set in golden yellow silk Mashru with Sindhi embroidery.
“Most of these embroideries were an expression of what the women in rural communities wanted to articulate. There was no TV, no Internet, no distractions or entertainment, no real freedom to engage with the outside world. Women didn’t work as paid ‘artisans’ but to create things for their families, homes and themselves. The embroideries are of best quality because there was no commercial purpose behind them,” he says.
Photo: Saumya Sinha
Long, hand-embroidered choli (blouse) made by a female artisan from a pastoral community in Kutch from A.A. Wazir's archives.
The Meaning and Value of Antiques
That definition of an antique resonates. An object that is not labelled just by age and vintage, but by a story that didn’t die. The meaning of which lives with the collector and the possessor.
“The condition in which it is acquired or sold, the time period when it was made, its vintage and historical value in the vast repertoire of Indian antiques”, are the ruling reasons that help Wazirbhai and his sons price a particular antique. “It is not always so easy or simple and there are times when I bring down the pricing if I sense that the person seeking it is a real connoisseur but can’t afford the asking price,” he adds.
Wazirbhai has a quiet insight that comes with experience, refinement of thought, filtering through what’s on sale and what can’t be ever bought. It is an almost philosophic attention to detail that gives him the mind of a museum maker. “I cannot describe my feelings and the love for heritage pieces ingested in me. It comes from a deep involvement with our cultural past. It is like a fragrance,” he says.
A Kutch trip to explore the region’s artisanal wealth or how Sindh is inexorably tied to the vocabulary of Kutchi artisans would be incomplete without getting a whiff of that fragrance.
