 is more than a map. This is a story of two rivers who, like true lovers, have shared everything together. They have survived invasions and wars while sharing religions, arts and culture. And that's the reason why you are standing here today, Textiles. Welcome to the Mekong Ganga Museum of Asian Traditional Textiles. So take a deep breath and get ready to time travel across six nations as we meet the amazing magicians who don't just weave cloth, they weave dreams. The highlight of this evening is a textile show presented by weavers and designers from all six Mekong Ganga countries. What a better place to start our journey from the Kingdom of Cambodia. One of the biggest symbols of Cambodia and the largest religious monuments in the world is Angkor Wat. Rising from the flood bank of the Mekong River, Angkor Wat was originally built as a Hindu temple dedicated to God Vishnu. So Angkor always remained a Hindu temple but some of the other temples like Bayon and others became Buddhist temples and then again turned back into Hindu temples. There is a lot of synergy between the carvings of these temples and the textile costumes of that period and contemporary Cambodia. In downtown Nongpen, the capital of Cambodia, designer Romida Keth uses indigenous Khmer silk to accentuate her designs. First of all I'm Cambodian and very proud to be able to use our Cambodian silk again. Romida is designing five handcrafted pieces for the fashion show and each piece shows off the craft of her country. There are five different models and I wanted to choose in particular the red, the pink, fuchsia and orange. Each dress has its particularity and I think it shows what we are able to do. The orientation gallery because the Mekong Ganga is so vast, one requires a little orientation. You get a glimpse of the centuries old cultural connections between the Mekong and the Ganga winding and intertwining, warping and weaving into an intricate mesh. Let's move now to one of the most mysterious countries in the region, Laos. In the heart of bustling Indochina is a wonderland waiting to be discovered. Laos. The people of Laos did not write down their history. They wove it instead. For the last 15 years, the social enterprise Ock Pop Talk or East meets West has been striving to preserve the rich textile traditions of Laos. Their collection for the fashion show embodies the spirit of modern Laos, a country rooted in tradition yet ready to take on the world. Our collection is based on folklore and mythological tales of Laos. The V's reflect historical storylines but the design has a very modern twist. Does anybody know what this is? I think it's a saree. That's right and wrong. The world knows this as a saree but for those who wear it and those who make it, it's six degrees of seduction hidden behind six yards of simplicity. But if you knew all that went into the making of a saree, you will fall in love with it. And this part of the museum, the materials and process gallery, wants to do just that. Make you fall in love with textiles. And here in the Vietnam section, there are detailed accounts on the role of women in spearheading the textile movement for centuries. Even today, women lead the pack in Vietnam. 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam. Farmer by day and weaver by night. Miss Oan still weaves on her ancestral looms to make jackwad fabric. Enter Linda Mai Phung, the young and modern face of Vietnamese fashion. Together, Linda and Miss Oan are creating an Asian collection called Shoot at the Moon for the Mekong Ganga Museum. This jackwad fabric is that it has been made by generations of mothers and daughters inside this community, this ethnic group. A craftsmanship that they learn before they learn to write or read actually. Also, it's only since 30 years that they use the traditional weaving machine. Before they would just only do it by hand. Time and cloth wait for no man. Here, at the traditional textiles gallery, you get a glimpse of rare hand-woven pieces that are a calculated result of precision, talent and hard work. Did we say talent? It is time to travel to Thailand. Striking architecture, rich natural beauty and a kaleidoscope of color. This is Thailand. For the Thai people, if color means bright, then textiles are life's philosophy. Studio Naena in Chiang Mai specializes in blending tradition with modernity. We are working with a lot of fabrics for this collection. And one of the key fabrics that we are working with is a traditional e-cat pattern. But working in a silk and cotton blend fabric. So again, that is the connection between the past and also the present. The initiative to set up the Mekong Ganga Museum came from former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Bajpai in 2002. And the Cambodian government provided a beautiful piece of land for the same. That when you have great civilizations, you need great textiles. The kings, the emperors, they have to wear textiles which are of a higher level than peasants. Whereas the peasants had a different way of doing it. They grew out of life itself. So our work was to put these things together. To bring together traditions which flowed across each other like seamless rivers. These were rivers which actually never meet together. You know, the Mekong and Ganga have no confluence. But the people of the region had a confluence in that they moved seamlessly across each other. And finally, history meets happening in this part of the museum. The Contemporary Trends Gallery. Over here, it's all about stitching innovation with relevance. Like this costume from Myanmar, the fabric is made by native kaya tribes. But the design is as modern as it gets. Myanmar's diverse ethnic groups have come to define its textile traditions. Designer Mohom works closely with the lotus weavers of Inle Lake. Perhaps the only community in the world to make fabric out of the lotus flowers. My collection is rather simple. I have used the traditional lotus fabric and given it a very modern touch. Since this fashion sure is about the power of six countries, I have used a lot of oriental inspiration in the design. The collection from Myanmar also boasts of one more quality, healing powers, which make it the perfect fabric for the robes of Buddhist monks. Ladies and gentlemen, the final destination, India. India's textile story is the stuff of legends. The first account of hand-woven textiles dates back to the Indus Valley civilization 4,000 years ago. Many centuries later, Indian textiles continue to capture the world's imagination. India is many countries within a country, so whether you go to North, West, East and South, the demographics of textiles in this country change quite rapidly and quite diversely and distinctly. Well, you know what I have done for them is two distinctive Bangalas because I wanted to make something that was Indian but could also be worn by somebody who was not from an Indian country and I thought the Bangala is very Indian but at the same time it's like a mandarin jacket and it has oriental influences. So I thought it would be an appropriate garment to send. What we tried to do in both of them is we tried to show Indian hand-woven fabrics, Indian dyeing and Indian hand embroidery, which are the pillars of the garment industry in India. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the specially curated textile show for the Mekong Ganga Museum of Asian traditional textiles. With special thanks to Ramita Kiat from Cambodia, Bo Wom from Myanmar, Bob Toc from Laos, Frisha and Lamona Cheeseman from Thailand, Linda Mai Fung from Vietnam, Sabya Sachi Mukherjee from India. Prior to these borders being made, this whole area was an area of flux and people were travelling and moving around and ideas were moving. So I think that the connection between these six countries is very, very strong in their artistic expressions.