Shilpgram

This guide to Shilpgram in Agra opens with the February procession of elephants and camels that arrives at this eleven-and-a-half-acre crafts village near the Taj Mahal's eastern gate. It follows the pietra dura artisans, carpet weavers and leather workers who keep Mughal-era techniques alive here, and traces the village's role since 1992 as the launch point for the ten-day Taj Mahotsav festival. The same pietra dura technique adorns the Taj Mahal nearby, sealed there in the seventeenth century but still being made in these workshops.