‘Mata ni Pachhedi’ is a ritual textile painted with Goddess Durga as the central theme. Mastered by the Chitaras, a community of Devipujaks (earlier called Vaghri), it started as a form of protest over 300 years ago, when the community was not allowed inside certain temples. The community largely resides in and around Ahmedabad
By Kalindi Jha
WHEN HE was young, Om Chitara would come home from school to see his father Kiranbhai and other family members busy in dyeing, drawing and filling colour on fabric in a section of their home that doubled as a studio. They would create pieces of art that would be revered and worshipped.
At 10 years, he learnt the art himself and now, 22-year-old Om Chitara – a ninth-generation artist – is among those keeping the dwindling art of Mata ni Pachhedi alive.Literally translating to ‘Behind the Mother Goddess’, Mata ni Pachhedi is a ritual textile painted with Goddess Durga as the central theme. Mastered by the Chitaras, a community of Devipujaks (earlier called Vaghri), it started as a form of protest over 300 years ago, when the community was not allowed inside certain temples. The community largely resides in Ahmedabad and around it.
Om says the tradition took shape across different periods for different reasons: during times of conflict and temple destruction, the cloth offered a portable form of worship; later, caste barriers made it an alternative for communities denied entry into temples.At their home in the Vasna area of Ahmedabad, the upper floor has a studio. “Our home serves as both our living space and our sanctuary for preserving Mata ni Pachhedi. Around 40 artisans in our community work together to keep this heritage alive, led by four senior craftsmen, including myself,” says Om.
The studio has unbleached fabric laid out to dry, earthen pots containing organic dyes made of indigo, henna and wild turmeric. Using specialised bamboo ‘kalam pens’ they draw on the fabric much like the kalamkari form of art used in clothing textile.Traditionally, our art relied purely on deep red derived from alum and tamarind seed paste; Black extracted from iron rust fermented with jaggery and water. We expanded our palette to use natural ingredients,” says Om.
Om describes his training as having begun from paper before moving on to cloth. His father, Kiranbhai Chitara, won the national award in 2005. In 2023, the Mata ni Pachhedi got a Geographical Indication tag and in 2025 another artist Bhanubhai Chitara got a Padma Shri.
Creating a piece measuring 2×2 feet takes up to two-and-a-half months. “The most time-consuming phase is the freehand drawing and line detailing using sharp bamboo sticks, followed by multiple rounds of mordanting, boiling in madder root and sundrying along the riverbanks,” says Om.
The final stage is boiling. Dhavdi (flame of forest) flowers and alizarin are used to fix the colours onto the fabric. The process leaves little room for error. “If a problem crops up during washing, the whole painting gets ruined; if colour turns out bad, the painting gets ruined; if the cloth isn’t treated properly, the colour will spread,” Om says.
Not allowed into temples, we brought the Goddess home’
Mata ni Pachhedi is also known as Chandarvo and Dhoti. According to Om, the craft served several purposes over time. During periods when communities were forced to move or when temples were destroyed, a temple could not simply be transported. A cloth could be folded, carried and put up again wherever the community found a safe place. Later, caste restrictions gave the cloth another significance. Chitara says members of his community were not permitted to enter certain temples. “So they also accepted the pachhedi, thinking, ‘Fine, if we can’t go to the temple, we will put this up at home’. We will pray to it in the village itself’,” he says. And because each Goddess came with her own stories, the artwork became a way of preserving those stories too.
The many forms of goddesses are known by their vehicles: Khodiyar Mata is associated with a crocodile, Meladi Mata with a goat, while Shetrunji Maa, the Goddess worshipped by Om’s community, is depicted with an elephant. The colours, too, carry meaning. Traditionally, Om says, Mata Ni Pachhedi was dominated by three colours: red, black and white. Red represented the Goddess, black was associated with protection from evil powers, and white represented good. Other colours were introduced later, as the craft evolved.
