My first visit to Bhujodi was in 2023. I took a train from New Delhi to Ahmedabad and then another one from Ahmedabad to Bhuj. I had been travelling to different craft clusters for a few years by then, but I still didn't really know what to expect when I arrived. The Bhuj railway station was much smaller than I had imagined. I had expected a busy station because of how much I had heard about Kutch, but it was surprisingly quiet.

From the station, I took an auto towards Bhujodi. The auto dropped us on the highway, and the first thing I saw was a large entrance pillar with "Bhujodi" written in Gujarati. It was May, and the summer in Kutch was at its peak. It was extremely hot and dry, and there wasn't really any transport available from where we were dropped, so we started walking into the village.

The first thing that struck me about Bhujodi was how peaceful it was. It is predominantly a community of weavers, with many families belonging to the Vankar community, and you could see that weaving wasn't something separated from everyday life. It was part of the village itself. In the centre was a temple dedicated to the local deity, with a courtyard and a large neem tree around it. Almost every house I passed had been decorated in some way. The walls were colourful, with patterns and motifs drawn by hand, and people even used cow dung as part of the traditional decoration. The houses had a very natural kind of beauty. I remember thinking that it looked a little like Santorini, but completely in its own Indian language.

People were extremely welcoming. Wherever we went, someone would offer us water or a drink because of the heat, or invite us inside. There was no sense that we were outsiders coming into the village to look at their craft. We were simply guests.

I stayed for three days at the home of Wankar Hamir Vishramji. His son, Ajay, had invited me to stay with them, and living there was probably one of the most useful parts of the trip. We slept on the floor, woke up early, went to bed early and followed a very simple routine. Water was kept in matkas, which stayed naturally cool despite the heat. There was no unnecessary consumption around us, and nobody seemed particularly concerned about having more things.

That simplicity stayed with me because sustainability is something we talk about constantly in cities and in fashion. In Bhujodi, I didn't hear people talking about sustainability. They were simply living in a way that used fewer resources. Clothes were locally made, things were repaired when they tore, old textiles were reused, and people made use of what was available around them. I remember asking why there wasn't an air conditioner in the house despite the heat. The answer was simply that they were comfortable without one. They had grown up with the climate and had adapted their lives around it.

I found that much more interesting than hearing someone explain sustainability to me. It made me think about how many things we have turned into ideas or trends in cities that have actually existed as ordinary ways of living in villages for generations.

The family had a large weaving workshop with several pit looms. Pit looms are a traditional form of handloom where the weaver sits with their legs inside a pit beneath the loom, and watching the process for the first time made me realise how much preparation happens before weaving even begins.

On our first day, we learnt how the yarn is prepared and placed onto the loom. It can take a day or two just to get everything ready before the weaver starts making the fabric. Once the loom is set, the weaving itself requires constant concentration and rhythm. I spent a lot of time simply watching the artisans work. Some of them were listening to the radio while weaving, and there was very little internet connectivity around the village. It was a very different environment from the one I was used to in Delhi.

We also visited the Wankar family, one of the most well-known weaving families from the village. Wankar Vishram Valji, in particular, has played an important role in bringing Bhujodi weaving to a much wider audience and introducing the craft to designers and institutions outside Kutch. I was very excited to meet him, but unfortunately he wasn't there when we visited. His brother welcomed us instead and showed us around.

They also showed us their indigo vats, which had been used for years, and told us about the different designers and brands they were working with. It was interesting to see how the craft was finding its way into contemporary fashion. More designers were beginning to work directly with craft communities, and artisans who had traditionally worked for local markets were now reaching audiences much further away.

That was encouraging to see. I don't think traditional crafts need to remain exactly where we found them. They need to remain alive, and sometimes that means finding new places for them.

Every evening, we would also go to the village temple for the evening puja. After spending the day around the looms, sitting there with everyone from the village was a completely different experience. It made me realise that the weaving couldn't really be separated from the community around it. The craft existed because the people and their way of life allowed it to continue.

I have returned to Bhujodi several times since that first trip. Whenever I'm in Kutch, I try to visit the village, and every visit gives me another reason to look at the craft differently. Our work with the Wankar family has also continued, and we keep developing Bhujodi textiles for Hindostan Archive, trying to find ways of bringing the traditional weave into contemporary clothing without losing what makes it recognisable.

But for me, travelling to these villages has never been only about finding a textile or developing a fabric that we can eventually turn into clothes. That is only one part of the journey. What I really want is to spend enough time with the people who make these things to understand how they live, what they eat, how they think, what their relationship with the craft is, and even how they approach something as simple as a design decision.

I want to live with them for a few days, breathe the same air, eat the same food, wake up at the same time and understand the place from their perspective. I want to hear their personal stories and understand the things that have shaped them. For me, those experiences are as important to the design process as the fabric itself.

As a young designer at NIFT New Delhi, this was something I always wanted to do. I wanted to travel to these places and spend time with the people who were actually keeping these crafts alive. Looking back, I feel incredibly lucky that I have been able to do that.

That is also why I don't think our job as designers is simply to preserve a craft by keeping it exactly the same. If we really want these traditions to survive, they have to continue being useful, wearable and economically viable for the people who make them.

A few days ago, I received a call from Ajay. He had been watching Cocktail 2 and had noticed a shirt on screen that looked very familiar. He called me and asked, "Is that your shirt?"

It was.

It was one of our Bhujodi shirts, made from the fabric we had developed with his family. He had recognised the weave immediately and was so excited that he told people in the village that their Bhujodi fabric had appeared in the film, worn by Shahid Kapoor.

I was probably as excited as he was.

I kept thinking about my first day in Bhujodi in 2023, arriving in the middle of May, walking into the village from the highway, and eventually staying at Ajay's home and spending days watching his family work.

At that point, I had no idea where the fabric we were developing would eventually go.

A few years later, Ajay was calling me because he had seen that same work on a movie screen.

For me, that was a very satisfying full-circle moment. Not because a celebrity had worn something we made, but because the person who helped make the fabric recognised his own work in the final garment.

That is ultimately what I want these collaborations to become. The craft should travel beyond the village, but the people who make it should never disappear from the story.

Field Notes 003, Bhujodi, Kutch. With Wankar Hamir Vishramji, Ajay and their family.