Arastan will be exhibiting its “Treasures of the Silk Route” in Mumbai from 16-18 February.

Arastan Handicrafts from the Silk Route

ARTISANS‘
52 – 56 Dr V B Gandhi Marg
(Behind Rhythm House)
Kala Ghoda
Mumbai

16,17,18 February; 11am-7pm

View the complete Treasures of the Silk Route – Exhibition at Artisans’, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai article on The Arastan Journey.

Uzbek Ceramic Tile Panel

On the 3^rd day of the exhibition I didn’t get a chance to answer my phone and when I did check there were 9 missed calls! Oh no – someone was lost and I was going to need to get them to Raintree. Nothing could be worse. I have difficulty with spatial awareness, the kind that means if I have to drive anywhere my husband draws me a simple map which I have to turn in the direction of travel in order to read. (Like from London to the Mars office in Waltham in the UK –  for those who don’t know it’s straight up one road!) When I did return the call, I spoke to someone who was visiting from abroad and who had heard about us having ‘unusual things’ through an acquaintance. He came, he saw, he bought. Three gorgeous carpets – an Iranian Gabbeh, a northwest Persian Kurdish carpet and a Tazenakht from Morocco. I don’t know who was more excited, him or me. And after the exhibition, a striking 13 feet long Mut kilim runner from Turkey that I just could not say no to when I was buying, even though it was far too long for most homes, did manage to find its perfect home. Arastan is all about sharing interesting finds with their stories from far off lands and it is happening, slowly but surely. So very satisfying.

RainTree Carpets

And for all those who came to the exhibition and who have been reading our newsletter, thank you. I started writing the newsletter because to be honest we had nothing but a name (well and the list of the other 199 names that we had shortlisted!) and a domain when we first started. Mike put the blog together in a few days (I am incredibly jealous that he can do that with almost anything, he is not far from being an expert in VAT and Customs and Magento e-commerce software for the online store!) ,and my friend Reshma and I wrote from Uzbekistan. It is so easy to write – quite literally like writing an email to a friend. If you had asked me (me who was so incredibly shy and timid as a child) if I would ever write in any public forum I would have laughed out aloud. So never say never – anything is possible!

Nandidurg Road is making slow progress, the online store getting there (both going live in February) and in a few weeks we are off to Mumbai. We will be at Artisans at Kala Ghoda on 16 – 18 February. Carpets, lamps, ceramic, art and textiles. I won’t say anything about the Uzbek ceramic, just put the pictures up: they should say it all! This is the work of Rustam Usmanov and Alisher Nazirov, both famous ceramists from Rishtan known for their individual styles. The platters are 40cm in diameter, the small tile panels approximately 23cm x 30cm and the stunning large 100 tile panel 0.5m x 2m. Maybe just maybe I can invite these gentleman to visit and talk and show us how they do it. Watch this space.

View the complete Strange things happen sometimes… article on The Arastan Journey.

Morocco at RainTree

View the complete Next stop Morocco! article on The Arastan Journey.

Unpacking has never been such fun. There is something very earthy about Moroccan carpets, which is possibly what attracts me to them generally, and especially those made by the Berber tribes from the Ait Ouaouzguite region in the High Atlas. Most of my collection are Tazenakhts – the carpet capital of this region – known for their interesting borders and stylized central motif. The new sheep wool ones are from Mrirt in the Middle Atlas. Enjoy!

View the complete The carpets from Morocco are here! article on The Arastan Journey.

I knew this could happen so have been diligent about sending an e-sugam form to my vendors so there is no hassle when the goods enter Karnataka. I forgot to do this for my Uzbek ceramic consignment (yes the one I ordered in February finally arrived in December – at least it got here in the same year) being sent by the clearing agent in Delhi. My phone rang at 6:38am and I was told by a Sales Tax Officer that my goods had been ‘abandoned’ at the check post at the airport as the documents were incomplete. I needed to come with the invoice, e-sugam and pay a fine of 3 times the actual VAT. When I said that sounded absurd (I am not very articulate without my first cup of tea, but even in that state I thought 3 times was ‘extravagant’) he made it 1 times. I got the picture. So I woke my accountant up who told me how to do the e-sugam online and off I went to the airport to argue my case to pay nothing. I was very pleasantly surprised when the officer accepted the papers and said I could take my wares – the shift had changed! And the goods had not been abandoned, just left there while the courier got the documents he needed!

Moroccan Carpet

With crates arriving from Uzbekistan and Morocco in the last month, the urgency to find more space has become very apparent. And thankfully we have now found it – a 60 year old house on Nandidurg Road. It is currently being tidied up for us and we should be in this month. I am multi-tasking to an extreme at the moment and I dare say enjoying it! Getting photos and content done for all our products for the online store, doing the bookings invitations and other logistics for upcoming exhibitions, recruiting (if you know anyone with the passion and ability to get involved with the madness that starting a new business is all about, then do let us know!) and getting the Arastan Studio ready. Then I’m off to Uzbekistan after that. Insane to go in the cold (again) but it is the best time for getting time with the artisans so I’m trying hard to ignore that factor, and have stocked up on warm clothes!

View the complete Never forget the e-sugam! article on The Arastan Journey.

View the complete Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for 2012 article on The Arastan Journey.

Come, Come, Whoever you Are
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come.

Mevlana Rumi, Sufi Mystic and Poet whose tomb lies in Konya

And they did come … at the turn of the last millennium, travellers, traders, nomads, empires, swept into Iran and Anatolia from Central Asia and beyond.

Konya Carpet

Konya is one place they met and traded and settled right from the 11th century through to the 16th century.  The Seljuk Empire that dominated a huge swath of Eurasia during those centuries created a cultural melting pot that extended from Turkey to China. It was out of that melting pot, fuelled by continual exchange of commodities and ideas along the Silk Roads, that Konya, Bergama and other well known cities came into prominence and most of what we know today as Anatolian carpets emerged.

“The best and handsomest carpets in the world are wrought here”, observed Marco Polo about the area around Konya. Ibn Battuta, another great traveller through the Islamic world, visited the region in the 1330s (about 60 years after Marco Polo). In his travel accounts, he too talks of Anatolian carpets being exported to all the Turkic-ruled places of the day. That included Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Persia, and parts of India and China.

What’s so special about Anatolian carpets?

Of course, being en route the ancient silk roads was a major contributor to the commercialisation and spread of the Anatolian carpet. But what gave these carpets their particular distinction was the eclectic fusion of geographies and cultures it came to represent.

Kilim Runner from Van

Scholars have found the Seljuk rugs from Konya to be knotted in the same “Turkish – Ghiordes knot” as carpet fragments found in tombs of the Altai mountains in Southern Siberia. (Read about the world’s oldest carpet, the “Pazyryk“, now housed at the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad.)

It appears the pile carpet and its older sibling, the flatweave kilim, travelled many thousand kilometres, over many thousand years, with their nomadic inventors – the tribes of Central Asia. During the great Seljuk era, these nomads followed their flock to settle in the Anatolian plateau, bringing with them their rich and varied weaving styles; each emblematic of a Yörük or nomadic identity. Over the decades, these tribal weaves merged with regional artistic traditions to create an amazing variety of novel patterns and design innovations that give carpets from this region a fascinating complexity.

The visual evolution of the Anatolian carpet is itself a lesson in history. The 11th century Seljuk carpet is identified by its geometric and stylised floriated motifs, seen as repeating rows, with borders bearing Kufic inscriptions. By the beginning of the 14th century, animal figures began to make their appearance. By the 16th century, the expanding Ottoman Empire and the influences of Iranian and Mamluk Art is noticed, especially through the medallion motif and diverse foliate compositions.

While carpet production in Anatolia today continues to be a lucrative, global business, the carpet itself has not lost its stature in the homes and traditions of the Anatolian family. A young woman still collects the best in the village for her dowry. Some are donated to the mosque in commemoration of loved ones who’ve passed on. And the remaining go to local markets, and onto to Istanbul, before finding their pride of place in New York or London, Venice or Singapore, Berlin and now, Bangalore. For Arastan, Nisha travelled to Turkey and hand picked varying sizes and patterns to reflect the stunning diversity of Anatolian weaves. Arastan offers a select collection of antique rugs and plenty of newly hand woven masterpieces to adorn living spaces as throws, floor cover or even, wall art. Check out what’s in store and take a piece of Anatolia home this festive season!

Happy Holidays!

View the complete The Carpets of Konya article on The Arastan Journey.

Arastan at Mumbai Christmas Fest

I love Mumbai. Hot, dirty, far too many people but home and so efficient. We managed to pack a lot in: the Indo-German Christmas Fest that was exhausting with the 12 hours of standing each day but taught us lots about the Mumbai market, tracking down a ceramist that does interesting wall art, a meeting with our financial and tax advisors, a trip to the ‘you get everything you can possibly imagine and those bits you cannot’ Santa Cruz market and, of course, food! The old man on Pali Hill (he must be in his 70s now) still makes the best sev puri. Not so impressed by a rather more expensive Trishna.

We saw our financial advisors after the fair for a planning exercise. Vaibhav Manek is a partner in a firm called KNAV and does customer relationships like no other. If he wasn’t so good at what he does, I would say he is in the wrong profession! It also usually takes Mike and me a good day before we absorb all that Vaibhav has said and I would say we are fairly intelligent people!

Came back with rattling bones but decided to do the Sunday Soul Sante the following weekend. I wonder about myself sometimes. Good fun and a great way to get known. And off I was three days later to the TiE Entrepreneurial Summit. Wow! Some excellent speakers such as Infosys co-founder NS Raghavan on behavioural economics, Jack Rivkin on the global economy and investment climate, Scott Cook (founder of Intuit Inc.) on leadership in the agile age. But the most striking aspect was the number of young entrepreneurs in the IT and clean technology space. Great intellectual stimulus, inspiring and very good to know that we have done much right in the way we have gone about Arastan. It is incredibly easy to be hard on oneself!

View the complete Rattling Bones article on The Arastan Journey.