Just as most customs fade away, the concept of selling rugs home to home was fading away till it was saved by rugweave in chennai. Nisha Tariq says, "The reason we thought it was required in today's age is because we have a lot of clients who walk in and eventually want to take the rugs back home to place it and then make the final decision. We have lots of clients who are celebrities, cricketers, movie directors, and industrialists from South India who prefer to remain anonymous. It is not a decision you make lightly, it is also an investment. We decided it would be nice to put out Pheriwala as a concept for our customers to directly call us if they are strapped for time. They give us their location and basic details, and we reach out to them."
Pheriwala is an on-wheel store. On asking why did they choose this business she said she had done her Masters in the States and was working there. Her brother (Zeeshan) did engineering and was working in a 9-5 IT job. Six years ago their dad was taking a month's break and wanted someone to fill in the position. That is when Zeeshan agreed to fill in for a month. And being in the store for a month he completely and absolutely fell in love with the whole concept. Despite having grown around carpets, they never ever thought that either of them would get into it. It was never something that was forced upon them.
Zeeshan being colour blind was attracted to the patterns. He grew a complete interest in the art and culture of how carpets were formed and made and the ideology behind it. How it is an art work just beyond something that you place in your house. The patterns called out to him and he started taking out books and educating himself and he now has a library full of books on rugs and carpets. He has been doing some online courses here and there to keep himself updated. He is also an appraiser. He took on that task and completely got into it. Now when he looks at a carpet he can immediately identify where it is from, which generation, what are its origins. So that is how he developed his interest in this business and the industry. Whereas for her it has been more recent, she has been in it for two years. It has been more recent in terms of social aspect. For her it was more on how it is helping in giving back to a community and to our country and help support so many people across the globe. This is how they decided that they could make an impact, it is a dying industry and they could support people, empower people, and it was a combination of their love for the art and culture that brought them back to their roots.
She also says, "I am doing this because I've grown up around it; I feel it is something where I can give back to the society in my own way. I am not making an impact where suddenly overnight the whole world is changing but would like to make an impact in whatever way we can because the drops of the ocean are what make the ocean."
When looked at it in another aspect, it is not just about the weavers, but also that a machine made rug has a very small life span. Second, it is not environmental friendly. Third, if the rugs are machine made then restoring them if anything happens is not possible, but with handmade rugs you can restore them.
She concludes - "We offer services to maintain your rugs as well. So, you are buying it once, it lasts lifetime. There is also a resale value to handmade rugs and not the machine made ones."
