These woven stories

It was a classic case of love at first sight for Danny Mehra. A newly-wed, with the wedding vows he’d taken still lingering in the air, Danny went and fell headlong in love… now before you misconstrue anything, we’ll be quick and let you know that the ‘paramour’ we are talking about here, were two beautiful tribal carpets his mother-in-law had gifted him. Ever since that beautiful day, twenty three years ago, Danny has been pursuing a life-long interest in collecting and knowing all he can, about these ‘bright, beautiful, quirky pieces of art,’ he likes to describe tribal carpets as. He recalls “the visual impact” they’d had on him. An impact so strong that it “became a mad obsession,” he says disarmingly. You know he is serious about it when he reveals that he’s named his two puppies after two styles of carpets, Luri and Tullu, namely.

Today, Danny owns carpets from countries as diverse as Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Syria, Germany. Luckily for him, he didn’t have to really travel to all these countries to buy them. Based as he was in USA, his hunting grounds, as Danny reveals were “websites, auction houses and exhibitions in USA and Europe.” However, while he is reluctant about revealing the number of carpets he owns thus far, suffice it to say that he might need a “a mini-football field to spread all of them end-to-end.” Talking about the monetary value of these carpets— which we learn can be just as expensive as a painting by the masters—Danny laughs, “The greater fool theory works very well here. So, you might think you’ve got a carpet for a good deal until you find a greater fool who might pay more for it!”

Slowly, the talk meanders to what he looks for while buying a tribal carpet and Danny very simply puts it, “I look for something that is unusual, that is rare in the carpets. It can be the colours, the patterns, essentially whatever catches my eye.”

A view endorsed by wife Renuka who gamely champions her husband’s love affair by offering suggestions on which carpet to buy, “if I think its something we haven’t seen before or something that I think is really unique.”

Getting in depth with the subject, we wonder about what really goes into making tribal carpets the coveted acquisitions they are. A topic that clearly is Danny’s favourite because he gets quite articulate here. “In making a tribal carpet, the textile and pattern are both created at the same time. The weaver is creating it, one row at a time, starting from the bottom going upto 9 feet or longer at times,” he rather succinctly explains. But what makes them rather priced, vis a vis their factory-created counterparts is that, “the weaver is not copying from a design that is given to him. In a tribal carpet, the picture is in the weaver’s head or heart.” This absence of a reference point that has the weaver relying on his own vision means that, “the design you see on the carpet is not symmetrical.” “They are very spontaneous and you have some very quirky designing happening there. It’s a lot like modern art,” avers Danny. “In Iran in the old times I’ve heard that the designer would recite the design to the weavers who would listen and weave according to their imagination,” is an interesting trivia this qualified CA shares.

Now, we get to the reason that compelled us to meet Danny in the first place - the exhibition and sale of carpets at Kynkyny. “I was introduced to Namrata (owner of Kynkyny) three years back when Kynkyny had an exhibition of Kilim carpets. When she got to know about my collection, we decided to hold an exhibition of them.” “I am hoping that I get to meet and develop a group of people who are interested in this art and who will see what I see,” he evocatively states, already looking forward to the show.  Because it is also going to be a sale of the carpets, one wonders if there is a certain sense of anxiety in parting with his objects of affection. “Oh yes,” he admits, “just like one wishes that they are sending their daughter away to a good home after marriage, I want to know the carpet is going to a good home!”

Carpet Stories, a collection of Tribal carpets by Danny Mehra will be on display at Kynkyny Art on March 21, 22 and 24