• Artworks and traditional items representing the rich heritage of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh were Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s choice of presents to world leaders during the G20 summit in Bali.

• Modi presented US President Joe Biden with Kangra miniature paintings, which portray ‘Shringar Rasa’, and his UK counterpart Rishi Sunak with ‘Mata Ni Pachedi’, a handmade Gujarat textile meant to be an offering in temples housing the Mother Goddess.

• Kangra painting is pictorial art named after Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, a former princely state, which patronized the art. It became prevalent with the fading of the Basohli school of painting in mid-18th century, and soon produced such a magnitude in paintings both in content as well as volume, that the ‘pahari’ painting school came to be known as Kangra paintings.

• The Kangra miniature paintings depict love in a natural backdrop. The sentiment of love as a metaphor and the devotion to the divine remains the inspiration and the central theme of these ‘pahari’ paintings.

• The PM gifted ‘Pithora’, a ritualistic tribal folk art by Rathwa artisans from Chhota Udaipur in Gujarat, to Australian leader Anthony Albanese while his present to his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni was a ‘Patan Patola dupatta’ (scarf).

• Modi’s gifts to the leaders from France, Germany and Singapore were ‘agate bowls’, work of traditional craft associated with the Kutch region of Gujarat.

• He gifted silver bowl, a unique and finely crafted work practised by skilled metalsmiths of Surat, and Kinnaur shawl, a speciality of the Himalayan region with its roots in the ancient tradition of wool milling and textile manufacturing, to the leader of Indonesia, the host country.

• He presented Spain’s leader with Kanal brass set associated with Mandi and Kullu regions in Himachal Pradesh. Kanal is a large, straight brass trumpet, over a metre long, played in parts of Himalayan India. It has a prominent bell resembling a datura flower and is used on ceremonial occasions.

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