Kashmir Tales – The Carpet Weavers

If you guys have been following my blog regularly, you might have noticed I always go quiet for two weeks every three months. First of all - my apologies and than you all for still following me! I am trying to juggle with work and full time education along with travelling and my travel blog, and every 3 month I have exams which leaves me with no time to write for a week. But as always, I am back and this time with the final chapter of my Kashmir Tales.

The carpet weaving machine

Kashmir flaunts its pristine gift of nature and survives with quaint, war zoned, recovering lanes full hopeful faces searching for life and smiling at what they have. Beautiful, quiet and enchanting is the place but equally amazing is the amount of art that flourished and has survived in this state. We have all heard of the Pashmina weaving that happens only in Kashmir but another thing that is ethnic to Kashmir is the Kashmiri carpet and rug weaving and guess what carpets made in Kashmir are not famous just in India but worldwide!

When I travel, I interact a lot with locals, get to know the place and its people as much as I can, collect stories, but often fail to pen them all down. In this current series of Kashmir Tales, I have made a conscious effort to share a piece of my local exploration of Kashmir and today I want to tell you more about the carpet weavers of the area.

During my stay in Srinagar I visited one of the premier carpet manufacturers and dealers of Kashmiri Carpets – Shawart Palace. Not really old, but well known for bringing a lot of carpet weavers under one roof. Right when you enter Shawart, you see a loom and a man weaving there, pretty oblivious to the customers entering and staring at his work. You see the work for about 20 minutes and it leaves you awestruck. You walk inside and you see a plethora of completed designs and you are mesmerized with the intricate work that has gone into each of the carpets and rugs in the room.

Rug and carpet weaving in Kashmir dates back to 11^th century when the locals wove simpleton rugs for their own houses. Eventually with advent of Mughals in the Kashmir valley the rugs got artistic. But it was in the early 15^th century when Badshah Zain-ul-Abidin brought a lot of Persian artisans with him to the valley who with the locals created regal rugs and carpets by blending pure wool and silk and by using the old school Persian techniques of hand woven rugs.

My dad, deep in conversation with the owner of the place.

The store owner at Shawart Palace told us that Kashmiri Carpets were famous because of their design and technique. Unlike the common carpets, that are tufted, Kashmiri rugs are hand knotted and hence are strong and ageless in a way. He also told me how these carpets are in high demand abroad, especially in gulf countries for, unlike the Persian rugs, Kashmiri rugs use bright colours as major thread work is of silk on wool and still manage to create major Islamic designs, oriental prints, floral styles and now days a lot of Rajasthani prints too. He said they have 50 something weavers working for their store and one weaver finishes a standard 900 by 900 knots carpet in about 8 months but as carpets sell for very high rates abroad it the produce is enough to give the workers, the shop and the actual carpet handloom more than enough revenue per year.

I did not dare ask him how much overpriced or under-priced a rug is at the store for Indians from the point of view of a weaver and how much a weaver earns. Neither did I questions the price of the ones they export, because looking around at the work I thought rich people wouldn’t mind paying for the quality they would be getting due to the skillfulness and diligence of the craftsmen who pour their hearts out for months to create these seemingly ostentatious carpets.

Colours!

I feel a lot of times that some form of art is priceless and the Kashmiri carpets sure seem to fall in the priceless zone.

Do you guys talk to locals during your travel and try to find more about some famous art or cultural trait of the place? Do let me know in the comments below.