Ajrak
The ajrak is the block-printed shawl of Sindh, stamped in deep indigo and madder red with concentric borders of geometric stars, flowers and trellis patterns, worn over the shoulder and used to cover sacred objects. The name is linked to the Arabic word for blue, and archaeologists point to indigo-dyed and resist-printed cotton found at the Indus valley site of Mohenjo-daro as evidence that such cloth was made in the region thousands of years ago. A single ajrak may pass through some twenty-one stages of washing, printing and dyeing, using wooden blocks carved by hereditary craftsmen and morda