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The durrie began life as a poor relation of the carpet. It lacked
all that a carpet had-class, luxury, visual appeal. Till 1947, the
durrie was strictly a utility item. It formed the bottom layer of a
bedding, making the bed smoother to lie on. It was used as floor
covering too, but seldom for aesthetic reasons, for durries those
came in terribly pedestrian designs and the colours had a tendency to
‘bleed’.
Came the Partition of India in 1947 and through
sheer chance, the people displaced from Hyderabad (Sind), Jhang and
Multan were allotted land in and around Panipat and most of them
happened to be skilled weavers. They lost no time setting up looms
and getting down to their ancestral craft, only to realize that they
were up against stiff competition from mills producing the same type
of durries much faster and much cheaper.
To counter the challenge, weavers of handloom
durries began to experiment with colour and design. Here and there
zebra stripes began to give way to floral and geometrical motifs.
Stock blues and reds made rooms for rich Indian colours. Slowly the
new kind of durrie caught on. And from cotton to woolen durries was
but a natural transition, Panipat being one of the largest markets of
raw wool in north India.
Today the Panipat-Ambala durrie belt is famous all
over the country and has various outlets, at home and abroad. One
notable outlet that serves admirably both local and foreign markets
is Fabindia, which is Delhi based. The Central Cottage Industries
Emporium and other state emporia also sell durries.
A durrie is different from a carpet in that is has
no pile. Unlike a carpet, it has no backing either, for which reason
it is reversible. While carpets are produced by knotting pile yarn to
warp, durries are made by interweaving weft and warp. Panja
durries are made on small or medium sized weaving frames. With deft
fingers the weaver picks up a specified number of threads on the wrap
and insert the coloured yarn that forms the weft, firmly ramming it
down in palace with the help of a panja or heavy, multipronged
metal fork. This is a traditional type of durrie, originally made by
village women around Panipat and was perhaps intended to from part of
their daughters’ dowries.
The handloom durrie, a more recent development, is
woven on a loom which is much larger than weaving frame. Here the
weft is wound on a shuttle and expertly slid across the warp. Both
panja and handloom durries are made in wool or cotton or a mixture of
the two. Sometimes jute fibre is also added to the thread. The panja
durrie is preferred by some because it is firmer and thicker and the
motifs stand out in bold relief.
A fairly new type of durrie on the Indian market is
the chindi durrie or rag rug. Probably the creation of some
thrifty householder, it was originally made from scraps of old
apparel, the warp being stout cotton thread. Cotton still forms the
warp, but the scraps have long since changed character. Now they come
in bulk, right out of the garment manufacturing units that have
mushroomed in recent years and that is why the chindi durrie appears
in all colours of the rainbow. An innovation on the same theme is the
leather scrap durrie. With the thriving leather industry at Agra,
Kanpur and other places, leather scrap is no problem and this is
being fashioned into elegant and unusual rugs.
Durries are woven in various other parts of the
country as well. Each region has its own distinctive motifs and
colour combinations. The designs on durries woven by the Bhutias of
Darjeeling, for example, have a strong Tibetan influence. Dragons are
a favourite motif, so are clouds. In south India, durries are woven
in the bright colours that one usually associates with fabrics from
the part of the country. Among the most picturesque are the durries
of Navalgund, a small place in the Dharwar district of Karnataka. The
Bhawani durries of Coimbatore district in Tamil Nadu are at least a
couple of centuries old. Duries from Madhya Pradesh are known for
their sturdy character and delightful colours. Rajasthan,
Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, all make distinctive
types of durries in wool or cotton or both.
The latter half of the sixties saw the rise of a
major talent in the field of designer durries-Shyam Ahuja. For a few
years after partition, Ahuja worked with his father, an exporter of
wool. When the vogue for synthetics caused wool exports to slump,
Ahuja turned to manufacturing and exporting woolen carpets, but only
with marginal success.
Ahuja’s lucky break came when the American
carpet designer Irwin Carey asked him to manufacture durries for
him. The first sample was done in wool, in a design created by Ahuja
himself on the basis of traditional Islamic patterns and worked in
soft pastels. The piece was a sensation. Order began to flow in,
particularly export orders. The designer durrie had come into its
own.
For all his commercial success and international
celebrity status, what comes through most powerfully is Shyam Ahuja
the artist. Very early in life, Ahuja showed an aptitude for drawing.
To that has been added a deep and abiding interest in fashioning
textile. He has had no formal training in this field, yet the design
direction of S.A. Pvt. Ltd. (Shyam Ahuja Private Limited) is entirely
his own.
Anand Sagar Khera and son Madhukar run the Bharat
Carpet Manufacturing Co. at Panipat and are one of the major
suppliers of export quality durries to Fabindia. Khera Sr. is an
alumnus of the Mayo School of Art, Lahore. Well into his seventies,
he stil retains a lively interest in drawing and paining and
traveling. Madhukar is a traveller too and an expert weaver in his
own right and both excel at designing durries. The Kheras have a
number of firsts to their credit. Theirs was the first hand-knotted
carpet manufacturing unit to be established at Pantipat. In 1966 they
switched to durries. And today their designs have caught on as far a
field as Assam and in several foreign countries as well. They are
among the first to have introduced steel structures for weaving
durries and fitting them wit little inputs like hand levers to
facilitate the work of the weaver. And they are trail blazers in that
their unit is housed in large, open, well ventilated halls where the
air is clean andnot choked with dust sand fibre. Once an employee
attains a certain degree of expertise and is so inclined, the Kheras
help him set up his own independent unit, in direct contract with
buyers. Amazingly, the Kheras refuse to expand beyond a pint because
too much business might lead to lower standards of production. It
might also cut into the time available for their other interests.
One of the latest entrants in the field of the
designer durrie is a soft-spoken young woman, Neeru Kumar. A graduate
of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Kumar is, like Ahuja
and the Kheras, primarily an artist-creating for the joy of it.
All three-Ahuja, the Kheras and Kumar-are agreed on
one point: basically the story of the designer durrie is nothing but
the colour story. What forms the main selling point in this business
is the highly imaginative, clever use of coloour. Ahuja rises to
poetic heights on the subject, saying that most durries are bough on
an impulse because the customer has fallen in love with a particular
blend of colours. He himself is famed far and wide for the use of
soft pastels.
The Kheras maintain that the naturals are their
strength and their ability to blend naturals, an assets. Natural wool
colours-brown, black, off-white and beige, do not show up dust that
easily and are equally popular at home and abroad. These are blended
with traditional Indian colours, according to exigencies of design
and the ruling tastes. Neeru Kumar also believes in rich, warm,
Indian colours blended to advantage with naturals. These are far more
practical than pastels in the dust laden atmosphere of an average
Indian home.
Where does a designer get the designs for his
durries? Well, like all inspiration, most of the time they just come.
But not idea or design is a disembodied product of the human mind. It
has to take off from somewhere. In Ahuja’s case it is his deep
tooted respect for traditional, classic design. He changes these and
adds something of his own to make them relevant in the present
context. He has an inbuilt feeling for design. A design is either
right or wrong. If right, Ahuja pursues it. If wrong, he simply
leaves it out. There are no in betweens. Ahuja has the whole thing
programmed. All his designs are on record, down to the minutest
detail, including colour combinations. As such it is possible to
repeat any piece on demand, be it Cardoba, Textile, Valencia, Kismet
or Kavita.
At Fabindia the designing is often a group effort
between the staff, professional designers (which is where the Kheras
come in), customers and weavers. The motifs used are adaptation from
old books and Kaleens. A master sample is retained but the
weaver is allowed a free hand so long as the finished product is
appealing to the eye. Neeru Kumar relies on modern designs, chiefly
geometrical figures and grids. Since she does not have the size of
organization required to mass produce, her durries tend to be one of
a kind and this, to some buyers, is a plus point.
Shyam Ahuja’s durries are not for those who
function on a slim budget. But the maintain that they are still very
reasonably priced in relation to hand-made durries the world over, if
we take into account the consistently high quality of raw material
and workmanship. Neeru Kumar’s durries are within reach of a
middle class buyer, while Fabindia has a glorious range to suit
almost every pocket.
The hand-made designer durries, in cotton, wool or
silk, have come on the textile scene like a breath of fresh air. Here
at last is promise of a beautiful interior that does not cost the
earth. Durries are cheaper than carpets. They are also lighter and
easier to maintain being, in most cases, washable. And with the added
bonus of reversibility, you have two for the price of one.
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