Amroha
— — mango groves and a Sufi shrine.
Not only on a wall.
“A district town in western Uttar Pradesh, between the Ganges and the foothills of the Himalaya, set in a belt of mango orchards old enough that the town's name is read by many as a contraction of aam and rohu, the mango and the river fish. The dargah of Shah Sharfuddin Shah Wilayat sits at the heart of the old quarter and has drawn pilgrims since the fourteenth century. Qawwali still rises from the courtyards on Thursday evenings. The brassware bazaars run on through the afternoon, and the road to Moradabad keeps the trucks moving past after dark.
Amroha, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Amroha is the headquarters of Jyotiba Phule Nagar / Amroha district in western Uttar Pradesh, on the Ganges-Yamuna doab roughly 130 kilometres east of Delhi and about 30 kilometres west of Moradabad. The town sits at around 207 metres of elevation, in flat alluvial country irrigated by the Ganges and the Ramganga. The municipal population is on the order of 200,000. Folk etymology reads the name as a compound of aam, the mango, and rohu, a river fish, both of which have been associated with the place since the mediaeval period. The town has a substantial Muslim population and a long composite cultural history.
Amroha follows the wider north Indian agricultural calendar. The mango groves flower in February and March and set fruit into the heat of April; harvest runs from late May through July. Wheat comes off the fields in April; the southwest monsoon arrives in late June or early July and refills the tanks and canals. Urs commemorations at the dargah of Shah Sharfuddin Shah Wilayat draw pilgrims twice in the cooler months. Summer temperatures climb above 42 degrees Celsius in May; winters are cool and often foggy, with daytime highs around 20 degrees Celsius in January.
Amroha sits on the Delhi-Moradabad railway corridor and is reached most easily by train from Old Delhi or Hazrat Nizamuddin, a journey of about three hours. The shrine of Shah Sharfuddin Shah Wilayat, a fourteenth-century Sufi saint, is the principal local site; Thursday evenings bring qawwali in the courtyards. The Vasudev temple and the Tulsi Park lie within walking distance of the old town. Brass and bell-metal work is sold along the bazaar streets, with much of the heavier production based in Moradabad nearby. Cooler months from November through February are the comfortable visiting window.