Our next destination, following the mosque complex, was a shop that sells Kashmeri hand knotted silk rugs, as well as other very fine Kashmeri items - beautiful clothing, true pashmina/kashmer scarves & wraps, fantastic traditional men's robes and other lovely things. Kashmir is pretty well cut off from the rest of India due to the mountains between the state and the main body of India - basically you can't get there from anywhere - all travel into Kashmir from India must be done by plane, there are no roads. Add to their physical isolation the conflict between Pakistan and India for the possession of the state - Kashmiri families struggle to make a living for themselves. They are most known for these rugs and India's government goes to great pains to help the communities be able to get their products out for trade. Karni explained the history of the dispute and as always happens in these sorts of situations, it is the people who are caught in the middle and suffer.
We were served a very lovely Kashmeri chai and a few cookies as this gentleman explained the traditional hand knotting process.
As you might expect, it can take months to complete a rug. Each family has their own designs, kept within that family from generation to generation for hundreds of years. These rugs are silk, the mouth waters from the beauty! All the silk is dyed using natural vegetable dyes.
The internet is a wonderful thing. I actually found this video of the very man in the very shop we visited. You can hear some of his demonstration for yourself!
He explains how long it can take and how the families teach their children starting from an early age. One thing that is not on the video here but that he told us is that people do not sit at the looms for hours and hours each day - it is generally limited to two hours per day. That is a little more understandable - I can't imagine how much knees and legs must ache if they sat any longer. Keep in mind they sit on the floor to work at the looms, not chairs.
After his little lecture on the process and history of the hand dying, hand knotting of the rugs, several young men laid out beautiful rug after beautiful rug. It is all part of the hard sell process that these places engage in. They are all charm and generosity - until you make it clear you are not going to buy a rug. Then they dismiss you, usually trying to make you feel ungrateful and discourteous for not purchasing. I always enjoy the explanations and seeing the beautiful items, but I resent the hard sell and sometimes nastiness that follows. I'm always amazed when anyone buys one of these rugs (and one lovely lady in our group did indeed purchase one) and pretty much feel if the shop makes a single sell they've covered their tea and cookie cost hundreds of times over so I wish they'd continue their friendliness right up to our taking our leave. Yes, we are Americans, and yes, we were able to pay for the trip - but that does not mean we have thousands of dollars waiting in our bank accounts to buy a rug or piece of jewelry every single time we stop at one of these shops. There are always several stops of this sort and of course we are given the option of just waiting on the bus - but why would anyone sit on a hot bus instead of seeing hand made items and being served drinks and snacks?
A sampling of some of the other products sold in the shop.
After the rug shop we went to lunch in an Indian influenced Chinese restaurant - Karni dubbed it Chindian food... Besides the three of us, only two others in our group used chop sticks. We always use chop sticks when eating Chinese food, makes it more fun. --- ok, now I'm hungry!
Once we are on the bus and on our way, be sure that each of us is watching closely as we make our way to the next adventure. In fact, the bus ride itself never fails to be an adventure. Karni was always watching as well and if he saw something that would be interesting to us, both buildings and behavior of the people we passed, he'd explain. The bus was a moving lecture hall - or sometimes comedy show.
Now - do you know that splenda causes gas in many people? Guess what color packets of splenda are in India....
On every bus ride the hub sat on one side of the bus and I sat on the other so that we could get pictures of whatever presented itself on both sides of the road as we went along. Pictures through the window certainly are not of the best quality - are often a little tilted or have the top of a car or someone's head in them or the reflection of ourselves on the glass - but sometimes it was the only way to catch the wealth of India we were passing. Usually we were past something before we could snap a shot - but sometimes we got some great shots.
A small bit of the wall surrounding The Red Fort.
At the end of the ride we arrived at a crafts "museum" housed inside yet another ancient complex. The museum part of the complex was closed this particular day, but several of the artists were still there to show us their craft and sell whatever we were prepared to buy. The museum is owned by the government and what the government does, in order to both encourage craftsmen and to be fair, is allow artists to use space in the courtyard of the museum and every so often rotate who can use a space. I wish we could have seen what was inside, but you can't have everything and of course our itinerary would have us there on the one day a week they are closed.
The first art we were greeted by were these terra cotta horses. I loved them. Unfortunately there was absolutely no way to safely transport these beauties home so I must be content with pictures. Fortunately, considering how many things I DID buy, I was content with pictures more than once.
He demonstrated the process for us. One of his pieces is now hanging in my collection of international art.
In addition to what I've shown here there were seamstresses making clothing, quilts, pillows and such, embroiderers, and a men working in metals.
The man with the little wooden toys really wanted us to take the boy's picture in this spot - drug the boy over and positioned him for us. The boy was a good sport about it - the man was so sweet and absolutely adorable.
When we'd finished at the museum it was necessary for us to cross the busy street to get to our bus. As I said earlier, the traffic does not stop for pedestrians so we learned to cross Indian style - Karni says "look left - look right, close your eyes and run for your life!" With his help, we made it. We'll be good at it by the end of the trip.
There you go, the next installment and massive picture dump. There will be one more post to finish this, the second day. Do you begin to get an idea of how packed our days always are with OAT? They do a great job of not only hitting the tourist spots but showing us some of the more off the beaten path treasures and do an outstanding job of immersing their travelers in the culture (at least as much as they can with groups of up to sixteen traveling together).
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