The Carpet Cellar

Our place is called The Carpet Cellar and we are located at 1 Anand Lok, right on Khel Gaon Marg. We are quite close to the Siri Fort Auditorium, so it’s easy to find us if you know that landmark. Inside, the space is packed with rugs and textiles from floor to ceiling. It isn’t a shiny showroom with bright lights. Instead, it feels a bit more like a warehouse or a big attic. There is that specific smell of old wool and natural dyes that stays in your clothes. We spend a lot of our time unrolling heavy carpets for people to look at. It’s hard on the back, but we’ve gotten used to it over the years. We don't have a big sales team. Usually, it’s just a couple of us who know where everything is buried. You might come in looking for one thing and we’ll have to dig through a stack of twenty others to find it. It’s a slow process, and we don't rush anyone. We don't have any polished scripts for when customers walk in. We just show them what we have and tell them what we know about the pieces. The dust is something we just live with because you can’t have this many old carpets without it. It’s a quiet, steady kind of job in a busy part of Delhi. We just stay here among the piles of patterns and wait for the next person.