Kutch Aari Embroidery

I am from a village near Bhuj, in the great white desert of Kutch. My mother taught me aari and suf embroidery before I could read.

Our stitches are counted on the reverse of the cloth, from memory, with mirrors set like small moons. Each community here has its own signature — you can read where a woman is from by how she stitches.

Through our collective, twenty women now earn from home. The needle that once only dressed our own dowries now sends our daughters to school.