Rising from the rubble

The 2001 earthquake crushed Bhuj and nearby villages. More than 20 years on, they have worked their way up and out of the disaster

- RAHUL DEVULAPALLI

Home is where the art is. 

For residents of Ajrakhpur, on the outskirts of Bhuj in Kachchh district, art has been at the heart of their survival and revival. Almost all residents here are involved in Ajrakh—a unique style of block printing and dyeing. It is so intrinsic to their identity that when an earthquake flattened their ancestral village— Dhamadka—and they moved to a new village some 50km away, they named it after their 4,500-year-old art form.

On January 26, 2001, Gujarat saw its worst earthquake in 50 years, with its epicentre 70km northeast of Bhuj. In a matter of minutes, almost everything, living and otherwise, returned to dust. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives, more than a lakh were injured and there was destruction all around. Those that survived had to start from scratch.

The residents of Ajrakhpur—all Muslims from the Khatri community—were no exception. Fortunately, their most valuable asset happened to be something intangible—their craftsmanship. But even before the earthquake, the villagers were looking for another place to settle and continue their craft because of the drought in Dhamadka. They collectively bought a huge tract of land and resettled in what is now Ajrakhpur. “This location satisfied different criteria like accessibility and proximity to the city, airport, schools and hospitals,” said Ismail Mohammed Khatri, a master craftsman with an honorary doctorate from a UK university. The Khatris trace their roots to Sindh in Pakistan, he added.