GAME - CHESS

DESERT ARTS AND PEOPLES

Cloth versions of games have been stitched since at least the Mogul era. These were often included in a girl's dowry, embellished as opulently as the family could afford.

This chess game is hand made by artisans who migrated from the Nagar Parkar region of Sindh to Kutch, a remote desert region of Western India. The board is a mini quilt of vegetable dyed fabric. Highly skilled in fine geometric suf and kharek style embroidery, women of Nagar Parkar traditionally turn their sense of patterning to patchwork once their eyesight begins to wane. Their patchwork quilts, today made to earn a living for their families, have through Kala Raksha become renowned.