At least 30 persons are required to unroll the carpet. Photo: Special Arrangement
The well-known Hazratbal dargah in Srinagar is attracting locals for a rare spectacle this week — the washing and clipping of the largest carpet woven in Kashmir by far. The intricate marvel is 72 ft. in size and 40 ft. in width, weighs 1,685 kg, and options over three crore knots.
The rare try pits Kashmiri artisans for the first time towards their conventional Iranian rivals, who’ve already woven a carpet the dimension of a soccer discipline at 60,468 sq. ft. The dargah offers a protected and huge sufficient area for clipping and washing the large and priceless carpet, which has taken eight years to finish and is prone to embellish a palace in the Middle East.
“At least 30 people are required to unroll the carpet. It would take 30-35 professional washers to deal with the carpet on a daily basis,” Zahoor Ahmad Shah, proprietor of the Shah Qadir and Sons, instructed The Hindu.
Samples of water from the close by Dal lake have been despatched for testing to the Indian Institute of Carpet Technology, Srinagar. “We await the report to ensure the water will not harm the carpet. We are handling it as delicately as possible,” Mr. Shah stated.
Mr. Shah’s firm obtained the order for the carpet in 2014 and commenced engaged on it in 2015. “It was not an easy task. In between, we were hit by several challenges, including the 2014 floods, the abrogation of Article 370 in J&K in 2019, and then waves of the COVID-19 pandemic,” he stated.
The carpet is in the Kashan model, a historic design adopted from the Iranian metropolis of Kashan.
The firm needed to rent engineers to remake a carpet loom at the Vailoo-Kunzar village in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district as Kashmir had no greater loom to match the activity. Cranes lifted the carpet on to giant trawlers for its transportation from Baramulla to Srinagar.
“Engineers modified and joined two major looms, and spread them over a 45 ft. wide area. Each day, 25-30 artisans spent hours upon hours, working over a period of eight years to accomplish the feat. Everyone from the person who sourced the order to us to the artisans who put in their sweat and blood made it possible,” Mr. Shah stated.
He stated that round 200 carpet artisans who had switched to different professions returned to the commerce for this mission. “The carpet industry is waning in Kashmir and poor wages are pushing artisans to other professions. I believe that projects like this can rekindle hope,” Mr. Shah stated.
Kashmir, regardless of being amongst the main carpet producing States in India, has seen gradual development as a result of the falling numbers of artisans in the sector. Over one lakh artisans are employed by the carpet business in Kashmir.
Official information present carpet manufacturing stood at ₹84.55 crore in 1990 and touched ₹821.50 crore in 2017, dropping to ₹299 crore in 2020-2021, solely to bounce again to ₹357 crore in 2022-2023. The feat of manufacturing one among the world’s largest carpets has infused new life into the craft.
“Kashmiris have been weaving carpets for centuries. However, size has always remained a constraint. There are very few large carpets. The oldest and the largest carpet from Kashmir continues to embellish the Darbar Hall of the Grand Lalit Hotel in Srinagar. I salute the weavers for creating these masterpieces. This is a watershed revival moment for Kashmir’s carpet industry,” Mahmood Ahmed Shah, Director, Handicrafts and Handloom Industries, Kashmir, stated.