Stories
Notes from the karkhana
Slow dispatches from Madanpura — the looms, the people, the city that carries them.
The craft · June 2026
The naqsha readers of Madanpura
How a hundred-year-old graph of holes and knots still tells the loom what to do.
The city · May 2026
A morning on the Ganga, before the looms wake
The sound of Banaras at five in the morning is the sound the weavers keep time to.
The material · April 2026
What real zari costs
Silver, drawn to a hair and gilded — and why the shiny plastic kind cheapens everything it touches.