Fakira Prints
a photo documentation
“The story goes as back as the times in history when my father would walk me to the river side, where lengths of colorful patterns waved up and down, with the gushing flow of Sabarmati. Things changed however, open banks were replaced by concrete blocks, flowing river by inert marshes, printing floors by long tables confined within four walls of the factories, washing got restricted to the water tanks, chemicals replaced natural colorants, and now, wooden blocks are fighting against much faster screen printing…” Master craftsman Faruk F. Chhipa recalls the days when he used to learn from his father Fakruddin Chhipa, who started ablock-printing unit in Ahmedabad, in 1964, under the name of ‘Fakira prints’.
Employing around seventy skilled block printers, the unit can easily claim to be one
of the biggest amongst 8-10 units in the city.
