Extraordinary embroidery by pre-partition artisans displayed in Karachi

Showcasing around 60 exquisite pieces, illuminating the vital contributions of minority communities to Sindh’s textile traditions before the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, the Haveli, Pakistan’s first museum of heritage textiles was inaugurated on Sunday.

Housed in a portion of a beautiful multi-level corner house in KDA Scheme 1, designed by Habib Fida Ali in 1969, the museum has been established by a private family foundation, which proudly showcases the internationally acclaimed textile collection of Nasreen Askari, one of Pakistan’s pre-eminent experts on textiles, who is also the director and co-founder of the Mohatta Palace Museum.

The inaugural exhibition at The Haveli, titled ‘A Coat of Many Colours’, according to Nasreen Askari, is the culmination of her lifelong dream. “To be able to share with the city of my birth, the extraordinary creativity of the artisans of this region,” she said.

“It is not often recognised that Sindhi embroidery is amongst the most skilful in the world. I hope that our exhibition will go towards demonstrating this reality,” she added.

The portion of her house that has been converted into the museum has a separate gate from another road, which has a textiles and handicrafts shop right in front.

Light saxophone music plays by musicians near the pond as one enters the sliding glass doors of the museum on the left to face an antique wooden door befitting of The Haveli, through which you cannot pass but which you may admire for its ancient charm and chiselled design and craft.

Gallery one educates about the textile traditions of Pakistan where cotton cultivation, weaving, dyeing and patterning on cloths were prevalent in the Indus Valley as early as the seventh millennium BCE.

Gallery two has dowry clothes embroidered by brides’ families. The Posh, usually square pieces of embroidered fabric of varying sizes used as coverlets or wraps for platters of gifts, in the collection are a traditional gift for the bridegroom and his family. Another section of Gallery 2 had Gaj, which are traditional blouses or tunics worn by women with panels of embroidery on the chest.

Gallery three had Bujhki or decorated dowry purses. Gallery four had animal adornments for the livestock that are integral to the lives of pastoral and rural communities living in natural environments. Finally, Gallery five, also comprising two sections, had men’s sashes or turban cloths and women’s Chola, the beautifully embroidered, thick, straight, knee-length wedding tunics, encrusted with panels of dense embroidery.

Earlier, Nasreen Askari’s husband Hasan Askari, an investment banker and former trustee of the British Museum along with being a big collector of art and artefacts from Pakistan, thanked their two children, son Iman and daughter Sehr, who let them make use of their birthright, their family home for the museum.

He also thanked the Mohatta Palace Museum for lending them support. “Cultural institutions must support each other,” he said, adding that it is not easy to start a museum, and that, too, in a city like Karachi. “I hope the precedent set by the Mohatta Palace Museum will be followed in future, too.”

He also said that the museum had been established out of passion and wanting to share his family’s personal collection for the good of society. “The textiles and embroidery, which you see in our collection, is the contribution of Hindus in Sindh before Partition. It won’t be seen by even one of its creators or his or her family as they left this region in 1947,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, art historian and writer F.S. Aijazuddin said that the museum and the exhibition was a tribute to the craftsmen and artisans, the creators of the artefacts displayed there. “The crafts of craftsmen and artisans are treasures not to be hidden in trunks,” he said.

Senior politician Mahtab Akbar Rashdi said that growing up in Naudero, a small town in Larkana, she had watched her elder sisters do embroidery in their spare time. Not having a knack for it herself, she had come to appreciate the art. “It is not just the art of stitching but the colour combinations, the patterns and the skill of the artisans to create textiles and do embroidery. Such craft is given to the hands that create them as a gift from God,” she said.

Senior diplomat Tariq Fatemi said that what Nasreen and Hasan Askari have done is phenomenal. “They collected these textiles and garments and preserved them by placing them in a museum, which is a gift to the nation,” he said. “Here we cling to what we own but they have generously shared what they owned with the people of Pakistan,” he added.

The Haveli will welcome visitors from Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 6pm.

Originally published in Dawn, December 16th, 2024