Step 2 - Share Your Design Brief

‘Sitara’ means the stars, and Santosh recalls her childhood in this rug. She loved to stargaze as a child, persisting even when asked to get back to bed. She considers the stars her guiding light in tough times, and even draws them on the walls for good luck. She shares, “I was the only one in my village that loved stars. I’ve heard people in cities long for it but don’t get a chance. My rug is for everyone that loves the stars and wants them in their life.”

‘Soch’ which translates to thinking is how Santosh describes her rug. She says, “For the first time I had to think so much.” In her Manchaha, she wanted to put all her experiences and has therefore invested so much time and effort in thinking about everything in the rug. She weaved pillars which she had seen sometime earlier while going to a temple 20 km away from her village. She even played around with geometry and incorporated arrows, flowers, lines and more in different sections of the rug. While weaving this Manchaha, she was trying to put thoughts into everything she saw. She watched everything but with a lot of consciousness. Earlier, she just used to glance at things but this time she observed everything in great detail. She believes that Manchaha brings out deep observation along with new perspectives. It enables a weaver to think with a different viewpoint. The journey changes from weaving without thought to thought in every action.

Like most weavers, Santosh too was overwhelmed at first as to what designs to weave into her Manchaha. She later decided to turn to nature and incorporated flowers and leaves. Guldasta means a bouquet of flowers, and this Manchaha can be a wonderful substitute for the expression of affection from a bouquet to a rug.

Santosh named the Manchaha ‘Tribujh’, meaning ‘triangle’ because while making it she took design inspiration from her husband’s trousers and ended up weaving in triangle shapes in the rug. She also remembered the designs in the carpets on magazines that caught her fancy and tried to make her own version of those.