The Taj Mahal, with all its wonder and majesty, is not the only spot in Agra resplendent in elegance. Heirs of craftsmen carry on traditions in jewelry, brassware and inlaid marble, but a showroom displaying the unique embroideries of the late Shams Uddin offers a spellbinding presentation of the works by the innovative artist.
Awarded the "Padma Shri" on Jan. 26, 1989 by the government of India, a distinction comparable to a knighthood, Shams is hailed as the originator of embroidery in three dimensions.
PHOTO: DPA
His creations over more than three decades reflect such startling realism and brilliant colors the subjects, primarily wildlife, appear ready to amble out of their frames.
"I didn't know there was anything else to see in Agra except the Taj Mahal," said American tourist Janet Grove. "This type of artistry astounds me."
There is no admission charge. "Everyone is welcome," said Ghanshyam Mathur, noting explanations are available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Indian dialects.
Entering a large room plunged into darkness, light suddenly focuses on a huge hanging embroidery of a bouquet of flowers seemingly hanging into the room from a vase embedded with semi-precious stones.
Measuring 2.13m by 1.52m, the work took the artist 4,170 days to complete, said Mathur, who guides visitors through the collection. None of the embroideries displayed, supplied by his family, are for sale. Shams, who died in 1999 at the age of 86, "was a naturalist," Mathur said.
Maximizing the dramatic effect is the light focused only on a single piece at a time. The gold and silver incorporated in one embroidery amount to 27,000 carats. Among the 23 wildlife scenes in silk threads is a large-scale embroidery of fighting cocks in dazzling hues that occupied Shams for 1,475 days, a stalking Indian tiger requiring 620 days and 21 other wildlife scenes, all made by hand.
A cheetah hunting partridges and a lioness bringing down an African zebra portray with stark vividness the realities of life in the wild.
In contrast, there are also works conveying the serenity of African elephants enjoying an evening drink, peacocks playing, parakeets alighting on a branch and Arabian stallions running through the plains.
Shams made "free hand sketches of his subjects," explained Mathur. Working alone, he embroidered them in cotton threads over and over until he obtained the required thickness and movements. Then, he took fiber from silk threads and twisted them together in the shades required.
"In the process, he created original unparallel works of art," Mathur said.
A long list of dignitaries have praised Shams' masterpieces. The first president of India, the late Rajendra Prasad, and the first prime minister, the late Pandit Jawahar Lai Nehru visited his exhibition in 1960. Shams embroidered the official seal of the president of the US and presented it to Lyndon Johnson in 1966. It is currently in the deceased president's library.
A portrait of late president Abraham Lincoln was turned over to former president Gerald Ford in 1976 and placed in the National Archives. Britain's Prince Charles was another recipient of a Shams' creation on visiting Agra in 1980. He was also honored with a special award by the late Prime Minister of India Indira Gandi.
A Hindu, Shams also respected figures from other religions, evident in his portrayal of Jesus surrounded by sheep in a pastoral setting embroidery called the Good Shepherd. The large embroidery required 6,570 days and is comparable in size to the figure of Lincoln. Viewers awed by the tapestries, each in its special glass case, are also amazed at the abundance of gemstones numbering in the thousands, including rubies, amethysts, garnets, topaz and an array of others.
Many of the stones were donated to Shams by the Kohinoor Jewellers adjacent to the showroom, Mathur said.
The single edifice captured on the embroideries on show is the Taj Mahal. The elaborate tribute to the wife of Emperor Shan Jahan after she died in childbearth in 1631 is depicted by Shams in white as it is seen in the brilliance of midday.
Equisite symmetry and harmony are the keynotes of the tapestry, as they are of the world-renowned mausoleum.
Although nearly blind in his later years, Shams continued his work, relying on family members to help him recreate in three dimensions his beloved subjects.
The technique is carried on now by his sons and other relatives, working out of their homes.
The primaries for this year’s nine-in-one local elections in November began early in this election cycle, starting last autumn. The local press has been full of tales of intrigue, betrayal, infighting and drama going back to the summer of 2024. This is not widely covered in the English-language press, and the nine-in-one elections are not well understood. The nine-in-one elections refer to the nine levels of local governments that go to the ballot, from the neighborhood and village borough chief level on up to the city mayor and county commissioner level. The main focus is on the 22 special municipality
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) invaded Vietnam in 1979, following a year of increasingly tense relations between the two states. Beijing viewed Vietnam’s close relations with Soviet Russia as a threat. One of the pretexts it used was the alleged mistreatment of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. Tension between the ethnic Chinese and governments in Vietnam had been ongoing for decades. The French used to play off the Vietnamese against the Chinese as a divide-and-rule strategy. The Saigon government in 1956 compelled all Vietnam-born Chinese to adopt Vietnamese citizenship. It also banned them from 11 trades they had previously
Hsu Pu-liao (許不了) never lived to see the premiere of his most successful film, The Clown and the Swan (小丑與天鵝, 1985). The movie, which starred Hsu, the “Taiwanese Charlie Chaplin,” outgrossed Jackie Chan’s Heart of Dragon (龍的心), earning NT$9.2 million at the local box office. Forty years after its premiere, the film has become the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute’s (TFAI) 100th restoration. “It is the only one of Hsu’s films whose original negative survived,” says director Kevin Chu (朱延平), one of Taiwan’s most commercially successful
Jan. 12 to Jan. 18 At the start of an Indigenous heritage tour of Beitou District (北投) in Taipei, I was handed a sheet of paper titled Ritual Song for the Various Peoples of Tamsui (淡水各社祭祀歌). The lyrics were in Chinese with no literal meaning, accompanied by romanized pronunciation that sounded closer to Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) than any Indigenous language. The translation explained that the song offered food and drink to one’s ancestors and wished for a bountiful harvest and deer hunting season. The program moved through sites related to the Ketagalan, a collective term for the
RSS