74 Million Knots of Hand-Made Beauty From Kashmir Decorated The G20 Summit Room For Prime Minister Modi

Obeetee Weaves Magnificent Carpets In Record Time To Display India's Rich Heritage To The World

The main Summit Room of the Bharat Mandapam was embellished with a magnificent series of 12 carpets, exquisitely woven in some of the most desolate villages of Kashmir by master artisans specialising in the ancient Persian style of art.At the G20 Summit in New Delhi on September 9, 2023 Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the world's top leaders at his rendition of the modern-day King Arthur's table of equals.

The carpets were meticulously designed and woven by India's oldest carpet weaving company, Obeetee, over a period of nearly 15 months, and contain nearly 74 million strands of hand-crafted brilliance.  

Nearly fifty master craftsmen from five different communities outside Srinagar laboured on twelve different weaves in the harshest natural conditions to create the Magnum Opus - the prime minister's ambitious plan to introduce the world to Kashmir's finest textiles.

Carpets depicting the Flora and Fauna of Kashmir, with the medallion Ardebil as the starting point, adorned the main Summit room in the form of 12 individual carpets forming a perfect circle, where PM Modi held bilateral talks with the world's most powerful leaders, including US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albon.

At Obeetee's design laboratories in Noida and Mirzapur, each carpet made from Kashmir's finest silk is meticulously woven with a unique story. One of them discusses the tree of life, while the other focuses on the birds of paradise. While one carpet depicts the region's flora, such as the Cypress trees, which are symbolic of immortality, another focuses on the indigenous creatures.

The 9th and 10th of September marked the conclusion of India's year-long G20 presidency. The European Union and the United States are members of the Group of Twenty. During the past 17 months, Obeetee overcame significant obstacles to bring the project to fruition.

"The design process took approximately one and a half years, while the weaving and completion of the carpets took an additional eight months. Several master craftsmen from the communities of Kashmir were afflicted by the Covid virus, causing a halt in production.  Due to the absence of electricity in these villages, weaving was initially performed at a very sluggish rate. Therefore, weaving could only occur during the day. Within a 70-200 km radius of Srinagar, generators were installed in the villages of Sringlipura, Moraji, Habar lassipora, Lakshman pura, and Hill Chaupan so that artisans could weave throughout the night. We managed to complete the carpets in record time and the results are exquisite.

The G20 area was a large circular conference room. Initially, the intention was to weave a large circular carpet of the highest quality in Kashmir. PM Modi desired to demonstrate to the world that Kashmir is a part of India, and what greater venue than the G20 summit's main hall? Due to a lack of time, we created 12 segments that would be assembled in the main hall to form a larger circle. This reduced the duration of the weaving process to one year. A single circular carpet would have required 2.5 years to produce." 

said Mr Rudra Chatterjee, Chairman, OBEETEE Carpets.

The design procedure commenced in April 2019, while weaving began in January 2021. In Kashmir, we uncovered a 572-knot silk-only quality.

According to Ms. Angelique Dhama, CEO of OBEETEE Carpets - Retail

"There are a staggering 744, 74,400 knots connecting all of the rugs.  In addition to the 12 carpets for the main G20 circular space, all of the carpets for the public areas of the Pragati Maidan, such as the breakout lounges and VVIP areas, were designed and fabricated in Obeetee, Mirzapur. Not only did these villages, where weaving was practised, lack electricity, but many of them also lacked adequate roads leading to them. However, their weaving ability is extraordinary."

Recently, 900 weavers from the districts of Bhadohi and Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh spent a staggering 10 lakh man-hours carpeting India's New Parliament building, which includes both the Rajya Sabha and the Lokya Sabha. Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the New Parliament Building on May 28.

Obeetee's weavers crafted 158 carpets for the Lok Sabha and 156 carpets for the Rajya Sabha before sewing them into a single carpet in the shape of a semicircle to complement the architecture of each House's 35,000-square-foot floor space.

The weavers created magnificent works of art by hand-knotting, a laborious and ancient technique.