Story of Craft Revival

The old town of Saharanpur wakes up to an early morning ajaan. Birds chirp noisily as the city shakes away its slumber with rattles of tea kettles and thud of hawkers throwing bundled newspapers into house porches.

The hues of dawn take over as people stir and the streets murmur with their everyday bustle.

The city originally named Shah-haroonpur after Hazrat Shah Haroon Chishti retains its vintage charm with simpler people and aged houses all huddled together.

Somewhere in a remote corner, few worn lanes takes me to a workshop where hands that create are busy making a pair of baalis.

Baalis that'll be a part of someone's story in another corner of the world.
This is the workshop where Naani'ki by Nomad comes alive.

A story that has traveled from the gullies of Saharanpur to places afar.

"A few years ago I was gifted a pair of baalis by my Naani.

My Naana had got them made for my mother's 14th birthday. The dangle and emotion behind it nudged me to look for people who can make those.

Both my Daada (paternal grandfather) and my Naana (maternal grandfather) were jewelers, so the jump into digging more about the craftwork came effortlessly to me.

During my course of research in vintage jewelry, I chanced upon Ehsaan and Farman.

The two brothers who made pattra jewelry."

PATTRA is a century-old craft. With its major influence during the pre-partition era, it had lost its hold over the dressing mirrors. The oldworld charm of the sepia-tinted bylanes and fluttering heartbeats needed to be remembered and relived.

Ehsaan was trained in Karigari under the guidance of his Abbu. He had been involved in the craft for 17 years then. The first decade went by well. A while later, he noticed that more and more people started coming with a request to get such jewels dissolved and less came to get new ones made.

My belief and love for the craft was somewhere enough to get him re-started with a new-found HOPE. (And for that I am very thankful).

What began as a story of one Naani, now touches a thousand stories.