Walking Tour in Amsterdam

People happily co-exist with water in Holland.

As soon as our plan for The Netherlands was finalised and our tickets booked to Amsterdam, I started searching for walking tours of the city. The first link that came up in the search was ‘Free Walking Tours Amsterdam’. Impressed by what I saw on their website, we registered for it. We had landed at around 9 pm in Amsterdam the previous night and the next morning was the walk. Jet lagged in a new country and trying to figure out the transport there got us late by around 5 minutes to the starting point. We saw the group leave and after a jog caught pace with them.

Sorry about this first photo in this post! But this was the first stop!

The window at Condomerie. Photo taken from here. 

The first stop was at Condomerie, the world’s first condom speciality shop where men can go and get customized fittings of condoms. They also have varieties of lubricants and other products related to sexual pleasure. Now, I looked around and saw that none of the other members in the group were taking any pictures. Having missed the introduction I wasn’t sure if there was a rule of no photography. I walked upto Marius, the tour guide and told him we had missed the introduction and if we were in the right group. He told us sternly that we were 10 minutes late (by now) but kindly permitted us to join the walk.

The next stop was my favourite, Metropolitan-The Pastry Room. We sampled the popular Dutch stroopwaffle and Marius announced that this place had the best hot chocolate. After the tour we came back to have that and trust me having that hot chocolate was like going to heaven and coming back! It was the best I have ever tasted! Thank you Marius.

You may also like my blog post on the 'Pune Heritage Walk'.

This cafe is a must visit.

The heavenly hot chocolate and the Chocolate  Bible. I will follow every word of this book! 

The Dutch speciality- Stroopwaffel. Photo taken from Wikipedia.

We then proceeded to the red light area. Photography is prohibited in this area. Called the De Wallen (the walled area), this is the only place in the world probably where religion and prostitution live side by side. Even while we walked the streets of the De Wallen we heard the tolling of the 14^th century Oude Kirk (Old Church) bells. There are around 400 windows in this area from where women stand and cater to customers. One rule is that women cannot solicit on the streets. So, we saw women in small rooms behind glass walls ready for their work.

The red light area. The rooms with bright pink lights on the ground floor are where women stand for customers.Photo taken from here. 

How did this area become a hub for prostitution? One reason is that women would solicit men in gambling bars and then take them to their own parlours later. The gambling bars thus started to lose customers. So they came up with an innovative idea that suited everyone- they set up parlours with fancy interiors and gradually starting employing prostitutes. Another reason for the flourishing sex trade in this area is that Amsterdam has been a trading port for many centuries where there were many sailors, traders and migrant population. Many centuries ago it was also the time when there was abject poverty. So men offered their wives for some money and a few herrings (which happens to be a favourite street food even now). So to cater to the influx of sailors and traders the red light area came to be established here. One version says that during the 16^th century when prostitution was punishable, the women in the trade would slip notes with their confessions under the church doors. The priests would then seal the confessions and pardon their ‘sins’ in exchange for acts of indulgence.

A street sculpture by an anonymous person. 

It’s well known that The Netherlands is one of the few countries where prostitution is legal. But Marius informed us that this does come with its share of problems. Crime has increased behind closed doors and the women who are in the business are mostly from East Europe and 90% of the customers are from outside the country. So it’s a law that is mainly profited by people outside the country. Also the rent for the windows (rooms) has shot up so women are having to work extra to pay the rent.

You may also like to read my blog post on 'A Day in Mysore'.

The statue of the 'belle' to honour all sex workers across the world. Photo taken from Wikipedia.

Thereafter, we stopped at a point and Marius explained how in the 1600's the Dutch were possessed by the 'Tulip mania'. Tulips were introduced to Holland in the late 1500's as an imported item from Turkey and were viewed as exotic flowers which only the affluent could afford. In 1634 the urge to possess tulip bulbs was so great that other industries were almost neglected! The prime variety of tulips could cost as much as $150,000 in today's money. There were even professional traders who would trade tulips on people's behalf. People even purchased tulip bulbs on credit and after taking loans thinking they could make huge profits out of it. But by 1637, prices began to fall and never recovered. Holders of tulips were forced to liquidate and declare bankruptcy.  

Photo taken from here.

As we walked along the canal to our next stop, Marius explained that Amsterdam is part of the 1/3 of Holland that lies below sea level and is slowly sinking. The Netherlands is called so for this very reason- 1/3 of it lies below sea level. Through a sophisticated and complex anti-flood system of dikes, pumps (windmills earlier) and sand dunes along the coast the city is kept from flooding. The whole of Amsterdam is built on poles drilled into the wet soil. And these poles and buildings are around 200-700 years old. He pointed out to buildings which are tilted or leaning forward. Wood rots over a period of time and especially so when water levels drop and the wood is exposed to air. Hence, the buildings lining the canals are mostly crooked. There is an agency appointed by the government to check water levels regularly and to maintain records to repair and reinforcements.

We then stopped at Den Waag, the oldest standing non-religious structure built in 1488 which now houses a café. But it has witnessed many a historical event. It was constructed as a city gate as an extension to the walls of Amsterdam, but when Amsterdam expanded beyond the walls, the walls were demolished and De Waag became a stand alone structure.  It was put to use as a weigh house (where goods were weighed) prior to the 1800’s when there was an absence of standard units of measurement. For some time after that it served as an anatomical theatre where surgeons performed well…surgeries! The legendary Dutch painter Rembrandt depicted De Waag in his 1632 painting titled, ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.’ In the early 19^th century it was the site for punishments and Marius showed us a painting of a guillotine in front of the building. As with the whole of Amsterdam, De Waag is also slowly sinking due to the porous soil and repair and maintenance work is routinely carried out.

Den Waag

A painting of Den Waag with the guillotine. Photo taken from here. 

Marius showing a photo of the Rembrandt's painting, 'The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp'.

Next stop was the erstwhile headquarters of the Dutch East India Company or the VOC. The VOC was a formidable megacorporation formed by competing Dutch trading companies in 1602. Its main purpose was trade, exploration and colonization of East Asia throughout the 17th and 18th century.  Being surrounded by water it is no surprise that the Dutch were pioneers in exploration by sea and subsequently cartography. The Dutch discovered Australia in 1606 and had named it Nova Holland. And also New Zealand which they named after Zeeland, a village in Holland. Similar is the case with New York which was called New Amsterdam originally and Brooklyn gets in name from Breuckelen, a village in Holland. We visited the National Maritime Museum later where we saw maps dating back to the early and mid-16^th century where only the west and north of Australia and shown on the map because the rest of it had not been explored! The VOC was a multi-national company and global employer, probably the first of its kind and in its prime it built and owned 1500 ships and employed 25,000 people out of which 3000 were in Holland. It was a forerunner of all modern corporations and even the British East India Company is believed to have been built on this model. But due to socio-economic changes in Europe and lack of proper financial management the company shut down in 1800. It was acquired by the University of Amsterdam in 1965 and now houses the Department of Sociology.

The VOC building from the inside. Photo taken from Wikipedia.

A coin issued by VOC in 1789.

Next to the VOC is the smallest house in Europe with an area that’s 2 meters wide and 5 meters deep built in 1738.  Marius informed that there used to be a tax imposed on the width of the house so to escape that the owners kept it at a bare minimum of 2 meters. It’s now the smallest tea house in Europe with just one single table.

The smallest Tea house.

During the walk, we noticed in many places three X’s marked. Marius explained that it represents the 3 dangers that afflicted Old Amsterdam- fire, floods and the Black plague.  We saw these marks everywhere-on buildings, on benches in the promenade, on flags, etc.

3 X's

Another one.

The next was not exactly a stop in the walk but more of a cultural perspective. Dutch people have funny names. You will understand why when the surnames are translated into English. As a disclaimer Marius stated that we not get offended by his language and that he is merely explaining what the surnames mean! Here I have listed the less offensive names. It all started when Napoleon Bonaparte had occupied Holland in 1811 and for the purpose of census made it mandatory that everyone pick a surname/family name which was not a common practice for the Dutch.  They thought it would be a temporary measure and picked offensive and comical surnames as a way of rebelling against their French occupiers. So you have surnames such as these:

·         Naaktgeboren (Born naked)

·         Poepjes (Little shit)

·         Kaasenbrood (cheese and bread)

·         Rotmensen (Rotten people)

·         Suikerbuik (Sugarbelly)

·         Spring in 't Veld (Jump in the Field)

·         Schooier (Beggar)

·         Scheefnek (Crooked-neck)

·         Uiekruier (Onion-crier)

·          Niemand (Nobody)

We then stopped at the oldest bank of Holland. In the 15^th and 16^th century there was a constant tussle between the Catholics and Protestants with the latter overthrowing the former in 1580. The Protestants closed all the Catholics monasteries and convents and the Magdalena Convent (formerly a Catholic convent) became a house for the poor. In 1614, a municipal pawn broker, Stadsbank van Lening purchased the former convent and converted it into a bank where the poor could get credit at fair rates instead of taking loans from private lenders at exorbitant rates. An architect was hired in 1616 to give the convent a makeover and he was the one who designed a relief over the door depicting 3 women pledging their possessions.

Have you read about the 116 year old Kulfi shop in Delhi?

The oldest bank in Holland. 

Earlier, laws pertaining to the construction of buildings were very strict and even windows were taxed. So we saw a few buildings with the window frame but no windows. Opposite this is another wall where artefacts and objects salvaged and retrieved from the devastating 1953 floods are displayed.

A window frame with no window. 

Artefacts salvaged after the 1953 flood and displayed here. 

We concluded the tour at this point. As the name of this tour suggests (Free Walking Tours Amsterdam), there is no upfront payment for this and it’s purely on a tip basis. 

The walking tour map plotted by us. 

We checked with our Airbnb host about how much an appropriate tip amount would be and payed that. I would highly recommend this tour as it gives a wonderful insight into the history, culture and quirks of Amsterdam in just 2 hours!

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In Search of the Weavers of Khun.

Khun fabrics come in a variety of bright colours and patterns. 

Drive across the countryside in Maharashtra and north Karnataka and you will see beautiful rural women going about their daily work clad in beautiful Ilkal saris and a particular kind of self-designed bordered blouse made of the fabric called Khun, also called Khana in Karnataka.

While I did not get a perfect shot of a traditionally clad woman in a Khun blouse, I have taken this picture from this blog.

This beautiful woman with a big, bold bindi and stunning nose ring, called 'nath' has worn a khun blouse. Photo taken from here.

While my next post will be on the Ilkal sari weavers, in this post I will dwell upon Khun, which has come to be my favourite fabric. My associative memory with Khun has been with the bygone era in Maharashtra, which I haven’t experienced, but which has a particular sanctity seen through my urbanised eyes. Of women clad in bright saris, beautiful Khun blouses, wearing the crescent shaped bindi on their foreheads, bold women comfortable in their own skin.

My cook too wears Khun blouses on a daily basis, and while Pune markets are flooded with Khun fabrics, it is only last year that I decided that I must have Khun as part of my wardrobe. So I went on a Khun rampage and bought some meters of cloth in various colours, and got some sari blouses, crop tops and skirts stitched with them.

Wearing a Khun blouse with a Kalamkari saree for Durga puja.

Wearing a Khun crop top in Badami. Photo by Vaijayanti Chakravarthy.

Given our fast paced city lives, we seldom pause to ponder over the people who have contributed to making a piece of fabric and clothing. Even if the clothes are machine made, there are people who choose the colours, design the cloth, and operate the machines. And in the case of Khun, where it is still pre-dominantly handloom, I couldn’t help wondering about the people who created this beautiful fabric. In all the shops I enquired, the shop owners weren’t sure where it was made, guessing it may be in Kolhapur or in Karnataka. But I wanted a specific lead, so I could go and meet the weavers.

      You may like to read my post on the Ilkal sari weavers.

Wearing a Khun skirt and posing with journalist Shefali Vaidya.

Finally, in a seminar I attended, Shefali Vaidya, a noted journalist, who is also a Khun enthusiast told me it’s made in Guledgudda and soon after, a lady at a stall in a handloom exhibition gave me the contact number of the person from whom she sources the fabric.

The lanes of Guledgudda.

I immediately called up another friend, a long-time Khun lover asking if she could accompany me. Tickets were booked, leads were contacted and off we both went in search of Khun.

Sampath Rathi with khun and Ilkal saree. 

We first stopped at the home-cum-office of Sampath Rathi, who is a wholesaler of Khun and Ilkal sarees. His grandfather had migrated from Rajasthan to Guledgudda in 1924 and made this place his home. He has hundreds of weavers who buy the yarn from him and give back ready Khun and sarees and he charges a margin from the weavers. His cotton yarn mainly comes from Hindupur in Andhra Pradesh, silk yarn from Bangalore and artificial silk from Gujarat. So this works well for independent weavers who don’t have to get into logistics, but just buy whichever yarn they want and give him the ready cloth, which he then distributes and sells in various cities. 

You may also like my post on Handloom weavers of Bhujodi.

Khun comes in different materials and colours. 

Khun comes in combinations of silk and cotton, polyester and cotton and artificial silk and cotton. And in innumerable designs, motifs and patterns on the cloth.

A lady weaving Khun. 

I had read one of Shefali Vaidya’s posts, where she mentions that Khun is called so, because ‘khun’ means sugar and this is a fabric worn by women in the sugar cane belts in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Sampath gave me a more technical meaning. He said khun is a unit of measurement. Khun means half a meter, so two Khuns make a meter of cloth. So one roll of Khun cloth has 44 Khuns, i.e, 22 meters.

A hearty lunch at Sampath Rathi's home.

I asked him how old Khun is, when did it start?  In textile history there are stories of weavers migrating to other geographies, to escape oppression of invaders (that’s more likely in India due to the Islamic invasions), or to escape drought or famine, and then combining their own weaves with that of the weaves of the new place and forming a new one. Did anything like that happen with Khun weavers? He had no answer. He said this is the first time that someone had asked him this question and said that it is at least more than a 100 years old, based on general knowledge of the area.

Brothers, Motilal and Ambalal Ghanshyam Shah Chavan.

The dyes arranged on shelves. 

Un-dyed yarn.

What makes Khun unique is that it is the only fabric which is primarily made only for saree blouses, hence the original width of the fabric is 31 inches, although now weavers have increased the width to one meter.

We feasted our eyes on the numerous bright shades of Khun
and Ilkals and also bought some. 

To get this shade, they mixed, 100 gms red and 10 gms yellow. 

Getting ready to dip the yarn in the cauldron filled with dye. 

It was already 1 pm by then. Sampath casually said that after lunch in his home we could go and meet the dyers. I was filled with gratitude. He did not wait till we asked him where we could have lunch. We were just travelers who had stopped by to meet him and buy a few things. Yet, he asked us to join his family for lunch. When I thanked his father, he merely said, ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’, the ancient Indian belief and custom which means, “Treat guests as God”. That’s the spirit of India, which still thrives in the villages and warms my heart.

There it goes.

Wringing the yarn to remove water. 

After a hearty lunch, we visited the house of Motilal and Ambalal Ghanshyam Shah Chavan, brothers who are weavers as well as dyers. On the way to their house, we could hear the clickety-clack of handloom and well as power loom from the houses all around. They were in the process of dyeing yarn with bright red. They are the two out of the only five dyers left in the whole of Guledgudda. Their daughter promptly brought us some tea, and with their limited Hindi, they managed to explain the process of dyeing. Water is heated in a huge cauldron at a temperature of about 40 to 50 degrees Celsius. There were dye powders which are mixed to get the desired shade and colour. When we went they were dyeing a crimson red for which they mixed 10 gms turmeric yellow in 100 gms red dye. Interestingly the colour gets absorbed by the tarn and the water itself remains colorless. 

The steel dryer meant for yarn. 

How the yarn is separated to prevent it from getting entangled. 

Khun being made on a power loom.

The yarn is then hung on a steel rod and then dipped into the coloured water. It takes around 30 minutes for the colour to latch on to the yarn. After half hour, the yarn is squeezed and put in a dryer to quicken the drying. The dried yarn is then neatly combed and gathered together by hand to be used in a handloom or power loom. The Chavan brothers had a power loom running inside the house, so we went and took a look at it. The power loom makes around 20 meters of Khun per day whereas it takes around 15 days to make the same on handloom. That’s another reason why the handloom industry is struggling to survive.

Brothers, Siddharamappa and Jagannatha Mallagi.

We thanked the Chavan brothers and proceeded to our next stop, to meet the Mallagi brothers, both weavers of Khun. Both Siddharamappa and Jagannatha Mallagi have been weaving Khun since their teenage years, having learnt the craft from their father. They, too, didn’t know the history of Khunn and estimated it to be over 200 years old. They have around 6 looms in their house and all family members do weaving. All, except the next generation who have IT jobs in Bangalore. According to the Mallagi brothers, there is no bright future for Khun, as the next young generation migrates to cities in search of better pay and also because weaving is hard work and requires one to master the skill.. There are currently around 4000 weavers of Khun in Guledgudda alone, a huge decline from the 50,000 weavers in the early 2000’s. The average age of the Khun weavers is above 40 years.

Their home-cum-workshop.

I observed them working on the handloom and in the stillness of the house, the rhythmic taps and clacks of the handloom seemed poetic and musical. 
The Mallagis specialize in pure silk Khun and use only natural dyes which are chemical free. Thus, the pricing is relatively higher, since the dyes are sourced from various places. The indigo dye, for example, is grown in Andhra Pradesh, which sends the raw material to Germany, where it is made into powder form and sent back to India. I wondered why there are no factories to do this in India !

The Mallagis weave Khun only in pure silk and use natural dyes. 

Displaying the various colours. 

A skilled weaver weaves around 3 meters a day and Rs 600 per day is the labor charge if they have weavers from outside the family. They manage to weave around 40 meters per month.

Such a lovely colour Khun being woven.

There was such a serene look on the faces of the Mallagi brothers. I asked them if they were happy doing this. They replied saying that weaving is what they have done all their lives and this is what they know, so they are happy. I could sense the contentment too on their faces, as I sipped on the fresh lemonade they offered. Here, too, we bought some meters of fabric and thanked them profusely for their time and hospitality.

I got my pick fresh off the loom :-) 

I was inspired to illustrate my own version of one of Jamini Roy's paintings to represent Maharashtrian women in Ilkal and Khun with the crescent moon bindi and 'nath :-) Here it is. You may visit my art page, Purple Soul. I am taking orders for  prints of this work. Please contact me on priya@purplesoul.org for the same. 

My version of Jamini Roy's women in Khun and Ilkal.

I wish more designers take up Khun as a project and convert this beautiful fabric into interesting contemporary wear, which will find a wider audience. While browsing, I found this blog with an interesting take on Khun, in the form of a trouser. 

Khun stitched into a trouser. A brilliant idea:-). Photo take from here.

A friend, Vaijayanti, also a Khun enthusiast, wore a kurta made of Khun during the trip :-)

Kurta made of Khun. 

You may also buy directly from the Mallagis and from Sampath Rathi. Their contact details are given below. For those who are buying from the weavers/artisans for the first time, please DO NOT BARGAIN. I'm assuming others who buy from weavers, would not need that instruction as they would be sensitive to the work of the weavers and artisans and do not bargain over the price. The weavers put in a lot of work and time, not to mention years of expertise in creating a piece of cloth, so let's support them by paying whatever they ask for. You will need to know Hindi, to communicate with them. 

Sampath Rathi: +91- 9448776400
Mallagis: +91- 9008484671

We travelled from Pune to Badami by train, stayed at KSTDC Badami and hired a cab to go to Guledgudda, which is around 30 kms away. We also visited the ancient temple complexes of Pattadakkal, Aihole and Badami which I will be writing about soon. 

Edit 1: September 2019

I received an email from the publication house that manages the Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India's magazine called India Perspectives. They wanted to use my photos in the August 2019 issue of the magazine. Here are the pictures. 

Edit 2: February 2021

I received a message from a fashion designer yesterday who is mentioned in the below article and she accused me of using her images without due credits. I explained to her that the publisher has written the article and used my photos with permission (as well as hers). But just to be clear, I have blurred her images and re-uploaded the images which show only my photos clearly. I have also circled my name where the credits are given. The first page of the article is uploaded so that the heading of the article is known. Hope this leaves no room for confusion.

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