The telling of the Fabindia Story by Radhika Singh.
I was born in Delhi and have lived in the city most of my life. My parents relocated from Lahore in 1947 and rebuilt their lives in Delhi along with many other Punjabi families after Partition. John Bissell (the founder of Fabindia) married Bimla Nanda who was also a part of this Punjabi sub-culture now settled in post-partition India. My parents knew Bim very well and so a couple of years after she started a nursery school, I was enrolled as one of her students. My first encounter with John Bissell was at the Playhouse School. He enacted the role of Santa Claus at the annual Christmas events and has remained in my memory in that persona. I reconnected with the Bissells after Fabindia started its first store in the Greater Kailash N-block market and all the LSR girls (including me) started buying their khadi kurtas from there. John would often be present in the shop chatting with his customers. Fabindia became a favoured shopping destination for many of us growing into adulthood in the 80’s in Delhi and we enjoyed its expansion as a retailer of cotton handloom products. We were the ‘cool’ 70’s generation of liberal socialist students who wore handloom kurtas over jeans and Kolhapuri chappals, and carried jhollas. We ‘made love not war’ and were involved with new wave theatre and film, jazz festivals and late night sessions of Indian classical music under the open winter sky. Many of us remained in university through our 20’s either as students or as lecturers believing that we were an integral part of the change that...
Keywords
handloom textiles, handloom textiles india, radhika singh fab india
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