Day Two

In the morning, we had the official inauguration of the workshop, where we were introduced to the director of the school, Dr Pratap Kumar, and the head of the fashion department, Professor Malini. D. The Indian staff thanked us enormously for our part in what they have described as an important international collaboration between the two universities. The ceremony was well attended and most of the Indian national press were present, and covered the story in the following days papers. After the speeches, an opening ceremony for the project was perfomed, this entailed the lighting of candles surrounding a peacock sculpture, a symbol of initation and the royalty of India. The ceremony symbolises the opening of a new chapter between the two universities, offering the possibility of an exchange of knowledge and future collaborations.
For lunch we ventured to Domino’s pizza, the American chain which offered an Indian interpreatation on Italian cuisine.
Professor Malini D. made a presentation on “Traditional Indian Textiles”, and in the afternoon, Mr Chiranjeevi Reddy from the accessory design department presented an overview on “Indian Crafts and Industry”.
The local students have been fantastic hosts from the first day, taking care of our every need and acting as tour guides when necessary. In the evening, they took us to Shilparamam, a traditional bazaar run by the Arts, Crafts and Cultural Society of Hyderabad. It is actually a park were local crafts people come to present their hand-made produce (textiles, papercraft, clothing, etc). This was our first shopping experience, and we were pleasantly surprised at how willing the local salespeople were prepared to bartar with us but we were extremely fortunate to have our Indian student guide, Abhilasha, helping us. We were slighted perturbed by the street chilren who were constantly harrassing us for money, in the end we had the return to campus by taxi.