Do you long for perfumes that you have yet to discover? I do. I have fantasy perfumes. Today, to offset the chilly and overcast day, I'll write about one of them.
A few years ago, I fell in love with carpets. There are carpet shops everywhere in Pakistan; and on winter days, when one has nothing better to do, they are wonderful places to pass the time.
This love started in the classical way: I accompanied a friend to a carpet shop, and while he haggled over a price, I wondered around, taking in the lushness of 'garden' carpets, and the contrastingly spare tribal designs.
At first, a carpet shop is overwhelming. Who, I wondered, could keep track of so many names and styles? After a while I felt the exhaustion that creeps up after too long in a National Gallery. Too much to look at.
But with repeated visits, I gradually absorbed the language of carpets. Especially names of the so-called 'tribal' designs of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Yamut, Baloch, Turkmeni Sheraz, Turkmeni Bokhara, Waziri, Malki, Mashwani... These words acquired beautiful meanings, signifying places, tribes, and visual designs. On Sunday afternoons, I would climb the stairs to a large room, all sound absorbed by the woven masterpieces suspended from wall and ceiling, or rolled or folded in piles against the walls.
Sometimes I arrived around prayer time, and so would find the shop owner, Y--, kneeling on a prayer mat set beside his desk. His assistants would greet me wordlessly, and I would pad over to a few carpeted cushions (made from antique saddlebags), in the center of a large open area. By the time Y-- sat up and acknowledged me with tranquil eyes, the first carpets were unfurling across the floor.
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| This is not Y--, but one of his competitors. |
Y-- was above all a businessman - a smooth one, at that! - but he knew a lot, and his success stemmed from genuine feeling. He knew his carpets and their histories. Sometimes the stories were embroidered with extra flourishes, but that is the way of carpets; they have a magical power to inspire. The predominant colours of Y--'s stock were warm reds, sensual purples, mysterious blacks. He knew I liked tribal carpets - preferably ones that had their own histories. So, on Sundays, far from any great metropolitan art gallery, I stared at designs so boldly elemental that I could still see them, in negative, on my closed eyelids.
Soon the floor would be completely covered by rectangles of wool and silk. In my bare feet I could walk across them, bending here and there to run a hand across a particularly fine weave, turning to see how a carpet that appeared sombre from one direction revealed itself almost luridly when its pile caught the light. (Ankhoys are particularly prone to this. I have one that appears brown from one end, versus a vibrating burnt orange from the other.)
After several cups of tea (spicy chai, sweet green, refreshing apple), I would be stricken by the impending decision. Would it be the shaggy, wild Baloch...or the refined old Turkmeni carpet with its intricate geometry? Y-- would suggest that I take both home for a week, "to see how you feel...live with them for a while." Oh, yeah. He was a great salesman, and I fell for it over and over.
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| Qashgai |
Of the many carpets that I collected, from Y-- and other carpet sellers over the years, there is one that I love above all: a sprawling old thing, depicting a mass of flowers and birds in an abstract pattern. Carpets of this design are no longer made; the people who made them were displaced by war. The carpet is not quite straight, having been made on a giant loom, and then trodden on and washed over the years. When I first acquired it, I removed all the furniture from the dining room and lay the carpet there. I liked to sit on it in the morning, sipping coffee and staring into the designs. Eventually, cushions and a low table were allowed in, to keep it company.
The perfume of the carpet shop would include notes of tea - spice, jasmine buds and apples. It would evoke not just the drama of bold colours and patterns, but the history of their creation: of myths told in tented encampments; of battles, rituals and migrations lived out on rugged terrain; of forbidden love and longing expressed in Persian poetic imagery. It would incorporate leather and smoke and animalic qualities. Somewhere overhead would float delicate wings, sensual flowers, pomegranates, smooth silk. The effect would be opulent and mysterious, suggesting that somewhere, if only in dreams, there really are flying carpets...
Note: all photos are mine; the last image is from here, a wonderful BBC documentary, "The Magic Carpet Flight Manual."
