‘The Banarasi sari will never die, despite all the lows. It’s about every girl’s dream’
An excerpt from ‘Banaras: Of Gods, Humans and Stories’, Nilosree Biswas and Irfan Nabi Farid, a weaver of Banrasi saris, working on the loom.
The sense of the peripheral is malleable for Banaras and, thus, a peepal tree can act as the most validating mapping indicator of a mohalla. Having probed multiple times about the specific peepal tree that stood on the yellow courtyard opposite a stone artisan’s workshop, eventually one could land up at Jagannath Prasad’s house.
A master artisan of Banarasi sarees and a second-generation weaver, Jagannath’s story is deeply connected to the history of arts in Banaras that somewhere converge on the complex checkered story of artisans and weavers of this city at large.