The carpet collector

To walk into the exhibition of Danny Mehra's collection of Persian "tribal carpets" at Delhi's India International Centre (ICC), is like walking into a Bedouin tent. Everywhere, lining the floors and walls, are carpets — exquisite, lustrous weaves in bold patterns of rich and warm shades of browns, ochres, mustards, rusts, tans, sienna and aubergines.

These are just a handful from the hundreds of rare, antique Persian carpets that Mehra has amassed over the past two decades. The rest (Mehra will not reveal how many he owns) are kept stacked in a thick pile in the living room of his Bengaluru apartment, where they make picturesque lounges for his two pet labradors, Luri and Tulu, named after two kinds of Persian rugs.

Collecting carpets is fairly unheard of in India. Mehra says he doesn't know of any other collector. Mehra's own collection began and developed in the US, where he lived for 30 years, and Europe, where he frequently travelled on work.

It all started with his mother-in-law gifting him two carpets at the wedding. "You blame your mother-in-law for everything," Mehra says in jest, "and that was my downfall." She had picked them from a carpet store where a family friend, a Lebanese, worked. Mehra was fascinated. "Every time I saw them, there was something new. There was a lot of movement in the design of these carpets."

"I had little money back then," recalls Mehra. So, the thought that he could afford expensive carpets never occurred to him. Until one day when he mustered the courage to walk into a store in Manhattan that hung a carpet he'd been eyeing for many days. "I walked past it every day, to and from work. New York is expensive and carpets are expensive and I'd feel self-conscious about going and asking how much it cost," he says. To his surprise, it was only $90. "That I could afford," he says, laughing. However, on looking back, he says it was a hideous one, with stark, chemical dyes. What opened up possibilities of learning more about carpets was the Internet. Earlier, he'd have to travel to places that had carpet stores and choose from large stacks. Now, he sees pictures, liaises with other collectors, takes part in online auctions.

But Mehra does not collect just any carpet, only a specific kind known as "tribal carpets." These are carpets and kilims — a dhurrie-like flatweave, which is thicker than the former and has a knotted "pile" — woven by nomadic tribes across west and central Asia a century ago or maybe more, but in their own homes and for their own use, from wool obtained from their own sheep. They'd dye using local, natural dyes. The best of these, named after the tribes who wove them, are the Qashqai, Luri, Afshar, Yoruk, Karakalpal Turkoman, Sanjabi and Shikak Kurds.

Tribal carpets, says Mehra, are very different from "city carpets" that are woven in industrial workshops. They have an artisanal, rustic feel and a quirky unevenness. Mehra calls them "anti-carpet" because they defy characteristics considered desirable in carpets, such as a high knot count or the use of silk. Instead, tribal carpets are made of wool, the knots are loose, the colours uneven, the edges crooked and the patterns mismatched.

But it's these qualities that, for Mehra, constitute their principal appeal. "I call them 'perfectly imperfect.' Women would weave these carpets, often as part of their dowry, while the men tended the sheep and dyed the wool. The unique thing is that there was no particular design that the women copied or followed. It was all in their head and came together as they wove," says Mehra.

The Delhi show (Mehra plans to head to Mumbai and Chennai next) has several rare, characteristic specimens of several of these varieties, some of them going back 200 years. There are no carpets from India, which, says Mehra, does not have a carpet-weaving tradition. "I think carpets were not used much in India, probably because of the climate." The only indigenous carpets he's aware of is Kashmiri Namdas — made of felt and embroidered. "But I don't have one."

However, that doesn't stop him from adding to his ever-growing collection. In December 2015, he bought 15 carpets from a Swedish collector. "I just can't help buying more; it's a completely irrational habit." The fun, he says, is in the hunt for the next unusual thing, and when he's paid for it and taken delivery, to wash it and restore it. "I get a lot of gratification from getting them from where they were once a 100 years ago, never washed, to what the weavers wove; to see their colours glow again."