"Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack Chapter 69"
The sun blazed over the golden dunes of Rajasthan, where camels plodded along trade routes and fortresses rose like sandstone giants against the sky. Su Yao's car navigated through narrow lanes of Jodhpur's blue city, passing women in mirrored ghagras (long skirts) carrying brass water pots on their heads, until it reached a walled courtyard where Bandhani artisans worked. In the shade of a neem tree, a group of weavers sat cross-legged on cotton mats, their fingers flying as they tied tiny knots in silk fabric—each no larger than a grain of rice. Their leader, a woman with hennaed hands and a bandhani dupatta draped over her shoulders named Meera, looked up as they approached, holding a finished scarf bursting with reds, yellows, and greens in patterns of dots and circles. "You've come for the bandhani," she said, her Marwari dialect musical like temple bells, gesturing to bolts of dyed fabric laid out to dry in the sun.
The Rajput people of Rajasthan have crafted Bandhani (tie-and-dye textiles) for over 500 years, a craft intertwined with their royal traditions and wedding rituals. The bandhani—a fabric created by tying thousands of tiny knots before dyeing—serves as a symbol of purity and prosperity: brides wear red bandhani to signify marital bliss, while yellow patterns denote spring festivals, and green represents new beginnings. Woven from silk and cotton traded along ancient routes, each piece requires up to six months of work, with the number of knots directly tied to its value (a single sari can have over 100,000 knots). Dyes are made from plants and minerals found in the Thar Desert: turmeric for yellow, indigo for blue, and manjistha (madder root) for red, with recipes guarded by rangrez (master dyers) through secret family lineages. The process begins with a puja (prayer) to Lord Krishna and Goddess Radha, whose divine love is said to inspire the vibrant colors, and dyers fast during the final stages to "keep the hues pure." Su Yao's team had traveled here to merge this intricate craft with their seaweed-metal blend, hoping to create a textile that honored Rajput traditions while adding durability to the delicate silk fibers. But from the first conversation, it was clear that their understanding of "sacred precision" and "innovation" was as different as the arid desert and the monsoon-soaked coast.
Meera's granddaughter, Lata, a 26-year-old who ran a heritage workshop while studying Rajasthani folklore, held up a bandhani sari with a pattern of peacock motifs and floral designs. "This is for a royal wedding," she said, tracing the motifs that tell stories of love and loyalty. "My grandmother tied the knots during Sharad Purnima (autumn full moon) when the gods are said to bless unions—too many dots, and the pattern becomes chaotic; too few, and the blessings are sparse. You don't just make bandhani—you weave destiny into cloth."
Su Yao's team had brought mechanical knotting machines and synthetic dye blends, intending to mass-produce simplified bandhani patterns using their seaweed-metal blend for a "royal Indian" luxury line. When Lin displayed a prototype with machine-tied dot patterns, the women froze, their wooden knotting tools clattering to the mat. Meera's husband, Gajraj, a 65-year-old rangrez with a white turban and hands permanently stained indigo, stood and folded his hands in a traditional greeting before speaking. "You think machines can capture the prana (life force) of human touch?" he said, his voice steady but sharp as a sword. "Bandhani carries the breath of artisans and the dreams of brides. Your metal has no breath, no dreams—it's a stone, not a sacred vow."
Cultural friction deepened over materials and rituals. Rajput dyers source silk from Varanasi, where it's woven with prayers to ensure "each thread carries devotion," and cotton from local farms watered by the Luni River. The fabric is washed in wells sacred to the goddess Ganga, with offerings of prasadam (holy food) left at the water's edge. Dyes are prepared in copper vats over camel-dung fires, with each color mixed according to astrological charts—red is dyed during Mars' ascension for "passion," blue during Saturn's reign for "stability." The seaweed-metal blend, despite its organic origins, was viewed as an intrusion. "Your thread comes from salt waters that never reach our desert," Meera said, placing the sample on a silver tray etched with floral patterns. "It will never hold the blessings of our gods."
A practical crisis emerged when the metal threads reacted with the manjistha dye, turning it a murky brown and causing the silk fibers to fray. "It angers Krishna," Lata said, holding up a ruined swatch where the peacock pattern had blurred. "Our bandhani grows more vibrant with each wedding it witnesses, like a well-told love story. This will decay like a broken promise, erasing the divine blessings."
Then disaster struck: a locust plague swept through the Thar Desert, devouring the turmeric and indigo fields used for dyeing and damaging the weavers' wooden knotting tools—some carved with royal insignias dating to the Mughal era. The stored silk, kept in a sandalwood chest, was infested with insects, and their supply of rare saffron dye (traded from Kashmir) was destroyed. With the Teej festival approaching, when new bandhani is worn to honor marital happiness, the community faced a spiritual and economic crisis. Gajraj, performing a havan (fire ritual) to appease the locust god by offering ghee and sandalwood, blamed the team for disturbing the natural balance. "You brought something foreign to our sacred land," he chanted, as flames consumed the offerings. "Now the gods are angry, and they take back their colors."
That night, Su Yao sat with Meera in her courtyard, where a clay stove simmered with dal baati churma (lentils with baked bread), filling the air with the scent of ghee and spices. The walls were hung with bandhani textiles and portraits of Rajput kings, and a small shrine held idols of Krishna and Radha, draped in tiny bandhani scarves. "I'm sorry," Su Yao said, sipping masala chai sweetened with jaggery. "We came here thinking we could honor your craft, but we've only shown we don't understand its soul."
Meera smiled, passing Su Yao a piece of ghevar (honey-soaked dessert) decorated with saffron. "The locusts are not your fault," she said. "The desert tests us to teach patience, like a bride waits for her groom. My grandmother used to say that even damaged silk can be mended, like a broken heart can be healed. But your thread—maybe it's a chance to show that bandhani can tell new stories, without losing our royal heritage. Young people buy cheap tie-dye from factories. We need to show them our knots still hold divine blessings."
Su Yao nodded, hope blooming like khejri flowers after rain. "What if we start over? We'll help replant the dye fields, repair the knotting tools, and salvage the infested silk. We'll learn to tie Bandhani knots by hand, using your moon calendar. We won't copy your sacred patterns. Instead, we'll create new ones together—designs that merge your peacocks with our ocean waves, honoring both your desert and the sea. And we'll let Gajraj bless the metal thread with a puja, so it carries the gods' favor."
Lata, who had been listening from the doorway, stepped inside, her ghagra rustling like desert sand. "You'd really learn to tie the laheria (wave) pattern? It takes years to master the spacing—your eyes will strain, your fingers will blister from tying 10,000 knots a day."
"However long it takes," Su Yao said. "And we'll learn the bhajans (devotional songs) you sing to Krishna while working. Respect means praying with your gods."
Over the next four months, the team immersed themselves in Rajput life. They helped farmers dig trenches to protect new turmeric crops from locusts, their hands blistered from shoveling sand, and traveled with Gajraj to a hidden valley where wild manjistha grew, learning to harvest it without damaging the roots. They sat cross-legged on cotton mats, tying knots until their fingers were numb, as the women sang bhajans about Krishna's playful antics. "Each knot must be tied with the precision of a Rajput archer," Meera said, showing Su Yao how to twist the silk. "Too loose, and the dye bleeds; too tight, and the fabric tears. Like a vow—strong but not suffocating."
They learned to dye fabric in copper vats over camel-dung fires, their clothes stained red and blue as Lata taught them to add amla (gooseberry) extract to the manjistha dye to "make the color last like true love." "You have to stir the dye 108 times," she said, referencing the number of beads in a Hindu rosary, "once for each name of God." They practiced the mothra (pearl) knot technique that creates Bandhani's signature dots, their progress slow but steady as Meera's 88-year-old mother, Ratna, who had dyed fabrics for the last Maharaja of Jodhpur, corrected their work with a sharp eye. "The dots must be uniform like a row of soldiers," she said, her gnarled fingers adjusting a knot. "A crooked dot brings bad luck to the wearer."
To solve the reaction between the metal threads and manjistha dye, Lin experimented with coating the metal in a solution of silk sericin (a protein from silk cocoons) and sandalwood paste, a mixture Rajputs use to preserve ancient textiles. The sericin sealed the metal, preventing discoloration, while the paste added a subtle fragrance that Gajraj declared "smells like temple incense." "It's like giving the thread a Rajput soul," she said, showing Meera a swatch where the red now blazed against the metal's shimmer.
Fiona, inspired by the way Rajasthan's rivers (though few) flow to the Arabian Sea, designed a new pattern called "Desert Blooms, Ocean Waves," merging peacock motifs with wave patterns in seaweed-metal thread. The peacocks' feathers gradually transform into waves, symbolizing how even arid lands connect to the sea. "It honors your kings and our sailors," she said, and Gajraj nodded, pressing his hand to the fabric in a gesture of blessing. "The gods made both desert and sea," he said. "This cloth understands their union."
As the monsoon rains finally came and the dye fields sprouted new greenery, the community held a Teej celebration, with women singing wedding songs and swinging on decorated swings. They unveiled their first collaborative bandhani sari beneath a banyan tree said to be 300 years old. The fabric featured the "Desert Blooms, Ocean Waves" pattern, its silk fibers strengthened by seaweed-metal thread that caught the light like sunlight on water, and traditional chakri (circle) borders that glowed against the red background.
Meera draped the sari over Su Yao's shoulders, as the community chanted bhajans to Krishna. "This cloth has two souls," she said, her voice rising with the music. "One from our Rajasthan, one from your sea. But both are blessed by the gods."
As the team's car drove away from Jodhpur, Lata ran alongside, waving a small package. Su Yao rolled down the window, and she tossed it in: a scrap of silk dyed red with manjistha, stitched with a tiny peacock and wave in seaweed-metal, wrapped in marigold petals. "To remember us by," read a note in Marwari and Hindi. "Remember that desert and sea both hold divine love—like your thread and our silk."
Su Yao clutched the package as the golden dunes of Rajasthan stretched to the horizon, the sun setting in a blaze of orange. She thought of the hours spent tying knots by lantern light, the bhajans that seemed to weave themselves into the silk, the way the metal thread had finally learned to dance with the fibers. The Rajputs had taught her that tradition isn't about being trapped in royal pasts—it's about carrying sacred precision forward, letting old patterns evolve while keeping the divine in every knot.
Her phone buzzed with a message from the Aran Islands team: photos of Saoirse holding their collaborative sweater at a fishing festival. Su Yao smiled, typing back: "We've added a new peacock—Rajasthan desert and your sea, woven as one."
Somewhere in the distance, a temple bell rang, its sound echoing across the desert like a blessing. Su Yao knew their journey was far from over. There were still countless knots to tie, countless stories to weave into the tapestry of their work. And as long as they approached each new place with humility—honoring the gods, respecting the artisans—the tapestry would only grow more sacred, a testament to the beauty of devotion woven into every thread.