Knotty stories from Jaipur

Rugs, which lie around quietly in houses, bring together tales of designs, weaving, families coming together and more. Jaipur Rugs, a rug empire from the pink city in Rajasthan, is a place full of interesting stories.

. On a trip to the headquarters and its facilities, DH on Saturday learnt about how designs of rugs come about, and what’s hot in the carpet world now.

. Stepping away from traditional

. Started by Nand Kishore Chaudhary in 1978, the company (which was known as Bharat Carpet Enterprises then) began with two looms and nine artisans. With around 40,000 artisans spread across 600 villages in five states now, the company exports to over 80 countries with the US and Europe as its biggest markets.

. Read | Vishwakarma scheme gives hope to artisans in Karnataka

. Design has penetrated our culture throughout, not just in carpets, but in interiors, lifestyle, resorts and hotels, observes Kavita Chaudhary, design director of the company. “When I joined the business, it was all about traditional carpets. I was into modern design from college. I was inspired by contemporary collaborations at trade shows in Europe. Soon, I came up with my first collection called ‘Chaos Theory’ in 2013. In the first year, we sold rugs in 30 countries. The world was just getting ready for modern products and we launched this right in time,” she recollects.

. Kavita continues, “Most of our rugs had Agra and Mughal patterns. We also made a lot of Persian designs. Today, designs have moved on to abstract fine hand-knotted luxury offerings, rugs with better construction, and more textures and colours. The current trend is unshaped carpets.”

. In India, “seeing an encouraging customer base for unshaped carpets was surprising as these are not easy to use”, Kavita points out. “Architects are now looking for different combinations of concepts and things,” she adds.

. The company has a design library with more than 10,000 designs. One of their most popular offerings, which didn’t have a rosy ride initially, is the Manchaha collection. Kavita takes pride in this one-of-a-kind attempt at rug making, which is a self-exploration for the weaver. Rugs in this collection emulate personal stories.

. Currently, there are 1,700 Manchaha rugs (including pieces from Freedom Manchaha, which are rugs created by jail inmates). “As a child, when I travelled with my father (Nand Kishore Chaudhary) to villages in Gujarat, I noticed the people and their creativity. Whatever they made had a sense of originality. With our existing model of working directly with weavers, a sense of trust already existed. I wanted to tap into this trust,” she says.

. Manchaha started at Narhet village in Rajasthan in 2011. “The work on the rugs was quite out of this world. One of them had a 4-feet huge lotus, a little tree and a monkey on one side that was holding a gun and aiming at a rabbit (this carpet later became a rage where many customers would ask for the ‘monkey with a gun’ rug). I realised that the rugs were a bit ahead of their time. For a while, the carpets didn’t sell and we had to sell them at the cost price,” she says.

. Years later, when Kavita started working on a collection called ‘Project Error’ in late 2015, and was looking through the archives, she saw a Manchaha carpet called ‘Anthar’. Three weavers from different villages had worked on it together. Initially, they were doing their own designs, but over time the trio formed a bond, which could be seen in their designs coming together as one. The carpet looked like a nice mismatch pattern “which had chaos and harmony at the same time”.

. “The original carpet design, which had around 30 colours, was simplified to two colours. It won the German Design Award next year in 2016. The design became famous and went around the globe,” she recollects. After this, Kavita relaunched the Manchaha initiative, this time with a list of things to be kept a check on like patterns, sizes and colours. “Soon, customers went crazy about these designs,” she says.

. Much like other rugs, pieces from the Manchaha collection cannot be entirely replicated. “Sometimes interior designers love a piece and want it in a different size. We have the ‘Weavers’ Art Reserve’ collection, under which, when such a request comes in, we copy the design, and adjust the colours in a way that the rug becomes production friendly. It won’t look exactly like the original, but will have the vibe,” she explains.

. One of the most replicated designs is ‘Sawan ka Leheriya’, a design that won the European Product Design Award in 2019. The story goes: It was made by a couple Parvati Devi and Bhagchand. The couple was excited about the initiative — the man started working on one side of the carpet with symmetric patterns, while his wife was working on the other with free-flowing designs (Leheriya pattern). After disagreements, villagers came and looked at their designs, and suggested that Parvati’s designs should be continued, as symmetric designs were common now.

. Changing interests

. What are some motifs, colours and patterns that are commonly seen in most rugs? In motifs, the ‘shakarpara’ (diamond) pattern can be seen across rugs, Kavita says. “In modern rugs, camouflage patterns and camouflage-like abstracts, where one doesn’t know what it is, are now seen. They have a certain patchiness to them, which looks appealing,” she explains.

. For the longest time, lighter greys were the company’s top sellers in rugs. “Pastels and neutrals are on top of the list now. Light beige and ivories are also taking over,” she says. In deep colours, blue and red carpets still get sold, she adds. The different textures of the rugs include wool (in Persian and Tibetan knot), pure silk, handlooms, and daris (flat woven rugs).

. Until several years ago, the company barely did customisable designs. “But customisation is the new habit. We have a whole design studio dedicated to customised designs now,” she says.

. Pandemic boom

. The rug industry thrived amidst the pandemic, says Yogesh Chaudhary, director of the company.

. “During Covid, everybody was renovating their homes. From July 2020 till July 2022, we were packed with orders. When everything was on a break, our team was given a free hand to experiment, and some of the company’s top designs were born then,” he says. Of the company’s entire collection, 10% of rugs have traditional designs on them, while 90% are contemporary, abstract or transitional, Yogesh adds.

. The organisation has experimented with rug finishing. “We have a line called ‘Someplace in time’, where the carpet was vintage washed. The pile almost goes away in such a case, and it looks like a replica of an antique carpet,” he recollects.

. Indians generally like more colours. Else, almost 80% of tastes across countries stay similar, he says. “Our bestsellers in the US, India, Australia and Europe, are the same items,” he details.

. Purple colour tends to sell more in India than in any other country the company sells in, Yogesh notes. “Also, rugs in the maroon and orange palette are picked up more here.”

. Rugs are no longer just laid out on floors but are used on walls as wall hangings, even on ceilings, in home theatres, board rooms, galleries, and restaurants, to absorb sounds and add to the acoustics. “Carpets also accumulate dust rather than letting it float in the environment, which can be helpful for allergies,” Yogesh says.

. At their experience centre in Narain Niwas, on Narain Singh Road, Jaipur, depictions of rugs on walls, rugs used as frames with mirrors, as decor on walls, multiple rugs hanging from the ceiling, a cosy bathroom with rugs, a room with a rug behind the TV, can be seen.

. Types of rugs

. Deepak, a representative at Jaipur Rugs’ headquarter, says the company makes rugs in four constructions: hand-knotted, hand-tufted, handlooms and flat weave (daris).

. Rugs are available in 196 knots to 9 knots construction. “The more pixels in a photograph, the clearer your image. Similarly, the more the knots the better the quality of designs on a rug,” he details.

. Voices from a village where traditional weaving thrives

. At Manpura Macheri village, Shanti Devi, a bunkar sakhi (weaver’s companion), heads two training centres, one of which was set up around 17 years ago at her home. A ‘bunkar sakhi’ has to ensure top-notch quality in the rugs artisans weave and watch the progress. “Women from the village come to my house to learn how to weave rugs. We have trained more than 150 people here,” she says. “Among the rugs she created to date, the designs by interior designer Gauri Khan, have been the toughest,” she adds.

. An entry chart, which marks a check on the progress of each rug, is filled in every three days by the ‘bunkar sakhi’. “A centralised app called Tana Bana, where data on the location of the carpet, who is making it, how much work has been done, can be found on it. The ‘bunkar sakhi’ enters data into the app,” a representative of the company explains.

. Explaining the weaving process, the representative says, “The core framework of a rug is called Taani, which is made of cotton. Once it is made, it takes around five hours to be mounted on the loom by a Taani master. Once this is set, different maps guide the weaver to create knots, which leads to the finishing of the rug. The yarns are tied to the loom according to this map. When each colour ends, a stopper marks the end of it in the pattern.”

. At another centre, we see Mamta, a weaver with the organisation for 15 years, who has created seven Manchaha rugs to date. In the rugs she created, Mamta weaved in gulab jamun, a cleaning lady, and even the coronavirus. “I have become more confident about making designs, after making these rugs,” she adds.

. Another weaver who started working with the organisation at 50, has been working for almost three years. “I wondered if I would be able to work at this age. However, I came and learnt the craft. Now I don’t consume as many medicines as I used to earlier and can provide for my own medicines too,” she says confidently.

. Trivia

. Remember the nude photoshoot featuring Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh? It was shot on a Jaipur rug priced at Rs 6 lakh.

Knotty stories from Jaipur

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