A small square of yellow cloth carries four fish, stitched as though they are travelling somewhere together. Two of them swim across small blue patches of fabric. The patches once belonged to a sari worn by the grandmother of the woman who made the piece. Born in Pakistan, she came to India during Partition and always wanted to return home, but died without being able to.
Singh could not conduct all the stitching sessions, given the travel involved. “We held sessions in Karachi, Lahore and Balochistan. The Karachi stitches were picked up by the facilitator from London, who has family in the city. The tapestry is on display at Mool in South Extension from Friday to Saturday as part of Taana Baana, an exhibition for which the Independence Day weekend dates were chosen deliberately. After the exhibition, the Rafunaama team plans to approach the Partition Museum about displaying the tapestry there.
“When this woman got to know that the piece would travel to Pakistan, she brought these patches with her, saying that since her grandmother couldn’t return to her home, a piece of her clothing should,” says Rubina Singh, founder of Rafunaama, a South Asian platform and curated archive of woven histories, textile art, and feminist resistance. “And the India-Pakistan border is anyway closed,” she says wistfully. No one was travelling directly to Lahore and Balochistan, and even postage doesn’t travel between our countries now,” says Singh.
In Karachi, it is set to be displayed on August 14 and 15, 2027, marking 80 years of Partition. Eventually, the works will return to the places where they were made. But before that, the tapestry is scheduled to travel first to the United States in January or February next year, followed by London and Pakistan. And among them, four small fish are still travelling home.
