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Craft · Bada Bazaar

Bandhani

बंधनी बांधणी

Tens of thousands of knots tied by fingernail before the cloth ever sees dye

Closed now Commercial BuyWatch

Made or sold primarily for buyers. The form is traditional; the production usually is not.

Resist-dyeing by tying: each dot is a pinch of cloth bound with thread so tightly the dye can't reach it, and a good odhni carries tens of thousands of them. The tying is usually done by women at home, paid by the thousand knots, and almost never in the shop where the finished cloth is sold — which is the honest reason this is labelled commercial rather than living. Ask to see the cloth still knotted, before it's opened. If they can't show you that, you are in a reseller.

Finding it

The cloth end of Bada Bazaar, walking up from Jagdish Temple towards Hathipole.

When
Mon–Sat 10:30–20:30 Many shops shut on Sunday; some keep Monday instead.
Allow
60 min
Cost
₹₹
Themes
Textile, Dye, Bazaar
Placement
This is a neighbourhood, not a door — the practice has no single address.

Part of the same thread

  • Hathipole silver

    Tribal silver by weight, sold through the gate the elephants used

  • Leheriya

    Diagonal waves, made by rolling the cloth up and binding it before dyeing

How this entry was checked

Desk-researched only · last reviewed 2026-08-27

Nobody has stood here and checked. The sources below are leads to verify, not citations — treat times and prices as unconfirmed.

  • field-visit Find and verify at least one workshop where the tying itself can be seen, rather than only the retail end