Danny Mehra?s Knotty Love Affair

Danny Mehra?s tribal carpet collection is not just unique, it is also a storehouse of magical stories of gypsy women from around the world. We talk to him about his knotty love affair.

?It is a crazy and mad vocation,? is Danny Mehra?s opening statement when I meet him at his residence. I surmise this is a humble way of describing his fairly unique hobby of tribal carpet collection from across the world, until I too start believing his words as his love saga with carpets unfolds.

Spread and stacked across the house are his love interests in different stages of restoration and conservation; some of them having given him company for as long as 30 years. Each carpet has a name, an identification number and a story to tell. Danny?s passion, now on the verge of obsession, started soon after his marriage when his mother-in-law gifted the newly-weds a pair of carpets, supposedly Moroccan, bought in Cleveland from a Lebanese store. It was love at first sight for Danny. He was left mesmerized by their colours, asymmetrical design and mostly by their imperfection. This laid the foundation of a relationship that shares space in Danny?s life alongside his loving wife Renuka and their two Labradors Luri and Tulu, named after two traditional carpet weaving tribes. Sharing his passion and fanning it further are his driver and carpet restorer who help him maintain and conserve these carpets.

Carpet showing change in border design
Photograph: Silver Talkies

?Tribal carpets are anti-carpets,? says Danny. ?They are loosely woven, asymmetric and perfectly imperfect. The weaves of a carpet can bare the soul of the weaver as you look for stories they communicate. It is these stories or imperfections that attract me to these carpets.? None of the carpets in his collection are Indian, for as Danny explains, ?Carpet weaving in India is done mainly for commercial reasons and are weaved based on designs from a picture. The weaving tradition followed 100 years earlier was completely different as the designs were sprouts of a weaver?s imagination.? The oldest carpet in Danny?s collection is about 200-250 years old.

With his wife and labradors.
Photograph: Silver Talkies

Danny has been collecting tribal carpets for the last 15-20 years and has Baluchi, Persian, Kurdish and Caucasian carpets in his tribal carpet collection, dating back to the early 19th and 20th centuries. However, it is only recently that he started travelling with them across the country. ?I never did this for a living. My first exhibition was at Kynkyny Art Gallery, Bangalore in 2012 and have been exhibiting there almost annually. I do sell few carpets now and then but my exhibitions are more of a medium to spread the carpet stories far and wide.? His exhibition last year at India International Centre, Delhi, was the high point of his second career as his collection was not only appreciated by the who?s who of fashion industry, it also earned his quirky hobby an acceptance from his family. ?The sight of 83 carpets displayed in a 3,400 sqft area was a visual delight and an object of fascination,? says Danny?s wife Renuka, who has a fascinating hobby of her own ? collecting children?s books which she puts to good use as a reading specialist at a leading international school in the city.

Behind this glamorous sounding vocation is a hectic work schedule of 12 hours a day as Danny spends extensive time over the internet marking as well as procuring his next buy. He interacts with collectors, dealers and auctioneers from across the world and may sometimes have a courtship period, as he calls it, lasting as long as two years before he can lay his hands on a carpet he has set his eyes upon. However, when it comes to parting with any of his collection, Danny would like to take it slow as he would like to bask in the love of his carpets a little bit longer. ?I wanted to be a journalist but ended up being an accountant as that was considered a worthier profession in those days. I spent many years in US working as a consultant until I transferred back to Bangalore in 2005. Two years ago, when I was asked back I decided to give it all up and pursue my first love. I am 58 now and hope this interest will last me another 15 years at least.?

Panorama from IIC carpet stories exhibition.
Photograph courtesy: Danny Mehra

As he walks me through the house, I travel to distant lands of Persia, Iran, Morocco, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan and meet many nomadic women spinning and weaving yarns dyed in natural colours, lending them a design and shape of their creative imagination as they weave them row by row. I see a carpet that started with a broad border but narrowed down few rows later and one where the design of the border changed completely after a few rows as the design possibly didn?t sit well with the vision that the weaver woman had of it. I see demons with bloody hands, human beings, birds, flowers, trees, geometric patterns and abstract designs and have an epiphany realising the possessive nature of this relationship. Danny is one of the rare Indians investing his head and heart into this vocation. ?Unlike paintings, carpets are fairly undervalued as they don?t carry a unique signature of their creator. So they are not very popular as investments. There may be only 400-500 serious carpet collectors across the world,? he elaborates.

When asked what next, Danny says, ?I have been approached by the National Textile museum to showcase my collection but I dream of a house with a private museum adjoining it.?

In the comic Asterix and The Magic Carpet, Asterix travels to India on a magic carpet. We wish the dream comes true for this Indian Asterix too and hope his adventures on magical carpets continue to reveal many untold stories of gypsy women from all over the world.

Danny Mehra can be contacted at dannymehra@yahoo.com if you wish to join him on one such adventure.