CRAFTSMANSHIP QUARTERLY | The Little Blockprinting Workshop That Could

Padmini Govind awoke at 3 a.m. to her cell phone ringing. It was mid-October, 2020, and rain was pounding the roof of her home in Bengaluru, India, as it had since June, marking an unusually long monsoon season. In a panicked voice, her elderly father’s live-in caretaker informed her that the lake bordering the property had breached the container wall, and water was pouring into her father’s home—which also housed the family’s block-print textile business, Tharangini, on the bottom floor. Govind, her family, and staff spent a sleepless night packing up more than 5,000 new and antique printing blocks, dismantling six meter-long tables, each covered with 100 layers of jute fabric, moving it all to dry land, and securing and installing large pumps and sandbags.

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