Shikargah: The Hunt That Entered the Silk

Look at a Jangla long enough and a strange thought arrives: a garden this alive should have inhabitants. The Shikargah is what happens when that garden is finally, fully inhabited — a deer mid-leap, a peacock open in the canopy, an elephant with a rider, a horseman in pursuit. Every other motif of Banaras decorates; the Shikargah narrates.

Where the hunt came from — Persian hunting grounds, Mughal miniatures, the finest of the kimkhwab designs — why animals are the hardest thing a loom can draw, and how to read a Shikargah when one is open in front of you.

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