What brightens up your day?

“Teasing him!” Hemlata bursts out, gesturing to her husband Harsh. Husband and wife are both block printers working together in a small workshop adjoining their home. “I tease him about losing his hair and getting old,” she says laughing, while her husband smiles and shakes his head.

Harsh and Hemlata’s collection of intricately carved blocks sit piled on a shelf in the workshop. “I love it when we get a new pattern,” she says. “When new blocks arrive we’re like excited children, studying them, admiring them,” she pauses, giving her husband a conspiratorial look, “We criticise them occasionally too.”

“I’m not like other women,” Hemlata tells us with a glimmer in her eye. “They like to sit and watch romances, or shows about the conflict between a daughter and her mother-in-law. “I like to watch Maharana Pratap. It’s a historical epic about Rajasthan’s greatest king,” she says, lifting her chin with pride.

Hemlata Kumar, block printer