Our Heritage: A Hand Block Printing Family of Sanganer

The book our family wrote

Haath Thappa Chhapai was written by Haridwar Sharma (M.A. History) and Deepak Sharma (M.A. Sociology) in Sanganer. They wrote it so that fashion design students and young people could learn the full craft and start their own work in it. The book records:

• The traditional Sanganeri process – harisarna, dhulai, peela karna with harda, printing in rekh, chirai and datai, and fixing colours by ghaan rangna.
• Natural colour recipes – black syahi from iron horseshoes and jaggery, red begar from alum, gum and red ochre, yellows from harda, safflower and pomegranate rind.
• Dabu mud-resist printing and the indigo vat (maat), with exact quantities.
• How the Batkade carve wooden blocks from seasoned sheesham and gurjan wood.
• About 400 traditional butas, butis, bels and jaals of Sanganer – from the naachte mor (dancing peacock) to the naagin-sapera.
• Sanganeri, Bagru and Dabu printing compared, and how screen printing changed the trade.

What it means for buyers

When you buy from us, you deal directly with a manufacturing family that knows each stage by its real name – not a trader reselling stock. That is why we can tell you which block made a motif, why a colour sits the way it does, and what is hand printed versus screen printed.

Read the craft, step by step

We have translated the book's process chapters into English for our buyers:

• Sanganeri hand block printing process – 12 traditional steps
• How to identify hand block print vs screen print
• Wooden blocks (thappe) – how Sanganer's printing blocks are carved
• Traditional Sanganeri textiles – chunari, phadad, safa, palangposh
• Sanganeri chintz (chheent) and resist printing