Buying Carpets and Books in Pakistan

Buying Carpets and Books in Pakistan

I have a confession to make. A month or so ago when in Pakistan, I bought a $1500.00 carpet. Now, before you think that that is an inordinately high price for a carpet, I just want to say that it’s a handmade Kazakh rug. And I talked the store owner down from his original price of $4000.00, which I think is a pretty admirable demonstration of bargaining skills.

The carpet is a large one, four feet wide by six feet long. It’s made up of a bunch of four-inch squares with intricate multiple geometric and realistic images. It’s also a dimensional rug, having raised yarn borders around the squares. Bulbous tassels adorn the sides. The colors are all muted tans, yellows, golds, burgundies, greens, and blues. Piot, who was at the carpet store with me, said it looked like a rug meant for royalty. I definitely agree.

closeup of one of the squares

closeup of one of the squares

A brief history of Kazakh rugs:

Kazakh, originally a tribal name, is now a town, river and district in Azerbaijan. Carpets made by Kazakhs often feature coarse, long pile and dramatic colors and designs (all of which my carpet has in spades). Using Turkish knots, they’re generally made by Turkic nomads who are now settled. Today, lots of new Kazakh carpets are made in Pakistan inspired by old Caucasian designs. They use yarn dyed from natural vegetable dyes.

Detail of my carpet.

Detail of my carpet.

In Pakistan, you can also find Afghan rugs made by refugees who now reside there. During occupation by the Soviet Union between 1979 and 1992, close to one million Afghans fled their homeland and ended up in Pakistan and Iran. Afghan rugs are known to be durable and well made. They reflect the heritage of a cottage-based industry passed on through generations. Different qualities of pile carpets are available including felted wool ones called Namads, flat non-pile woven rugs called Kilims, and pile and knotted ones made from cotton, silk, and wool. It can take six to nine months to make a hand knotted carpet. When you think of it like that, $1500.00 doesn’t seem so high of a price.

You may be wondering how I managed to negotiate my price down to an amount more than 50% less than the original quoted price. The answer is pretty easy. I was completely prepared to leave the store without buying the carpet. The owner played that game where he asked how much I wanted to pay and had me write it down. I did. And then I refused to budge. He tried to cajole and guilt me into agreeing to a higher amount but I just kept saying no. Finally, our little group of four, gathered up our things and started to walk out the door. At this point, he finally said yes to my $1500.00 and the carpet was mine.

I bought my carpet at Afghan Carpet on School Road in Islamabad. If you are ever there, I encourage you to go visit them in person. They have a very large selection and serve some excellent tea. And they’re always up for a good strong negotiator.

My carpet at home in Harlem.

My carpet at home in Harlem.

This isn’t necessarily sewing related but, Afghan Carpet is down the street from one of the world’s largest bookstores (yes, that’s right, in Islamabad) called Saed’s Book Bank. The store is three stories and 42,000 square feet. They display around 200,000 titles and stock more than four million books throughout its five warehouses. You can literally find most anything there. Saed carries Cosmo and Heavy Metal Magazine, as well as books about Islam and Richard Dawkin’s atheist treatise, The God Delusion. You can find books on Catholicism and queer studies, an English translation of the Quran, maps and travel books, and novels by pretty much any English or American author you can think of. The store is a truly fantastic and amazing place to visit, especially when you consider that it sells predominantly books written in English in a country where that is most people’s second language. The New York Times published a wonderful article a few years ago about the store if you’re interested in reading more.

This is also my little way of saying that people are never wholly their governments and places are often not as scary as most media reports would lead you to believe. And there is truth and beauty and wonderful people wherever you travel, if you take the time to look for it.

Common Ground - Women's Sewing Center in Pakistan

Common Ground – Women’s Sewing Center in Pakistan

The road on the way to Chirah.

The road on the way to Chirah.

The road from Gilgit, Pakistan to Chirah in the Bagrote Valley is not an easy one. It starts out easy enough: along the paved Karakorum Highway. But, a few kilometers outside of Gilgit, you take a left directly into the mountains. And then the road is dirt, gravel, large rock, and sand – and steep. Lung wrenchingly steep, if you’re on a bicycle as we were. It winds up and around the mountain, free of guardrails, devoid of almost all traffic except the occasional motorbike. There is nothing to filter the searing sun. The air is heavy and hot and the path always, always, leads upward.

Until finally, the road evens out, becomes almost flat. And green appears – grass, trees, gardens, rows and rows of vegetables spread out on both sides. The air becomes a bit cooler and the winds whistle down from the peaks, circling through the valley in a refreshing heavenly respite.

Chirah Sewing Centre

Chirah is a small village in the Bagrote Valley in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. The region, self-governing, receives very limited support from the central Pakistani government.

The Chirah Sewing Centre, opened in April of 2012, provides six month courses to the women of the region to learn sewing skills so that they may, if they wish, earn their own income.

The Sewing Centre is housed in a small space provided by a village resident.

The Sewing Centre is housed in a small space provided by a village resident.

The Sewing Centre is housed in a small space provided by a village resident. The room is not very large at all, probably about 12-14 feet by 6-8 feet and there is no electricity. All the machines are treadle or hand operated. Only two of the machines were in cabinets – the rest were on the floor. They were all the old black Singer style machines in wooden cases. The women sit on the floor (or at the limited available tables) to sew, creating all kinds of garments and decorative textiles, a sampling of which hung on the walls of the room.

Little women

The women cooked breakfast for us the day we visited and we ate on the floor surrounded by their machines and sewing projects. The director of the Centre, a man, told us that they were hoping to acquire an overlock machine in the future. I wondered how that would work without electricity but didn’t get a chance to ask my question. Two of the women, the teachers we were told, sat in the corner of the room while we ate. They spoke quietly to each other from time to time but, as is often the case in Pakistan, they never directly addressed us.

I was the only woman in the cycling group of 7 plus 2 male Pakistani guides. We made eye contact, me and the two women in the corner, and they grinned at me when I waved.

After we ate, all the women who were enrolled in the sewing course, filed into the room to sit behind their machines. Everyone took pictures and the Director continued to talk about the women and the centre and what they were learning and what kinds of things they made.

Cultural differences

I tried to convey how I really enjoyed meeting the ladies at the Sewing Centre.

I tried to convey how I really enjoyed meeting the ladies at the Sewing Centre.

The men in my cycling group stood at the doorway and took photos of the women and their machines. I took some too but, after the men had gotten all the pictures they wanted, I went in to talk to the women directly. None of them knew much English and I, unfortunately, know very little Pakistani.

I did have pictures of my sewing machines and my studio on my phone though and I showed them those. One by one, as they scrolled through my photos and realized I sewed also, they smiled and grasped my hands, laughed, and talked excitedly with each other. I desperately wished we could communicate better. I wanted to talk to them about sewing, about the garments they made on machines without electricity. I also sort of wanted to apologize for all of my male companions taking photos of them as if they were in a zoo though I knew that none of them meant it that way. I also wanted to say that I wished they could tell me about the Centre in their own words, without the editing of a male spokesperson. But I couldn’t. So I had to settle for showing them as many pictures as I could and trying to convey how I really enjoyed meeting them and how much respect and admiration I had for them.

I wished that we could all sew together. I wished they were allowed to have their own voices in rooms full of men. I wished there was a way I could tell them how amazing I thought they all were. I wished they lived in a world where it was ok for women to talk to men freely, where they could look anyone they wanted in the eye, speak their minds. I wished they didn’t have to stay silent while someone described their lives. I wished I could spend more time with them but the group was getting ready to cycle on.

And so I got up to say goodbye. And every single one of them got up as well, hugged me as I left, and looked me directly in the eye, one tailor to another.