Desert Rose

In the city of Jaipur, Bijoy Jain’s remapping of a semi-traditional Rajasthani home into a craftsmanship centre is an act of cultural preservation. Established by the Lady Bamford Foundation, it goes by the name, Nila House

- Divya Mishra

If there is one image that can encapsulate all that Nila House stands for, it is this: the walls of the room I am in are painted in various shades of blue. Not in a distressed, organic chic way, but in swatches; neat rectangles, lined up in an orderly matrix and painted in slightly varying shades of light blue. Anuradha Singh (who heads Nila House) and I are also (coincidentally, I assure you) dressed in blue. It is quite like finding yourself inside a Pantone shade card. The swatches on the walls were to be sent to the UK, so the founder of Nila House, Lady Carole Bamford, could choose the precise shade of blue. It is this level of painstaking detail that has gone into the entire project.

FOUNDING CRAFT

A 1909 print of the Imperial Gazetteer of India lists the principal arts and industries of the city of Jaipur as “dyeing, carving on marble, enamelling on gold, pottery and brasswork”, and drily lauds the local School of Art, established in 1857, as “having done much useful work” in these areas. It is interesting to note how the craft traditions established more than a century-and-a-half ago grew to become one of the strongest pillars of the city’s foundations. In July this year, Jaipur was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Committee’s list of seven World Heritage Sites, stating that it had “maintained its local commercial, artisanal and cooperative traditions to this day”.