Beauty and decay, bedlam and peace, filth and fragrance
I am privileged enough to be able to travel to India to buy textiles and yarns for the Rain factory.
Sadly none of which is manufactured in South Africa and must be brought from a far away land
This rope shop is one of my very favourite haunts. discovered quite by accident while making way for someone to pass me in a tiny Old Delhi alleyway, I stumbled into this Alladins Cave of ropes, strings, twines, wools, yarns.
It is a beguiling store - luring you further and further into it's cavernous depths as you discover little staircases leading up and up , and little passages leading you into further chambers filled with disorderly chaos with every imaginable type of rope and string.
A myriad of tiny rooms are packed floor to ceiling with every conceivable sort of yarn, twine and rope, and of course there is the fetid odour of rats living side by side with the stock.
The owner is Tarun - the stout gentleman in the picture and alongside him is Prabu - my porter , who can only speak Hindi , but who carries my wares, shields me from rabid beggars, hails the rickshaws and who makes sure I don't get lost in the mayhem
After weighing every bundle and haggling over the prices , the goods are then loaded onto the local rickshaws to be transported .
I retreat to my clean cool calm accommodation with dear friend Bianca - away from the craziness that is India
At Rain , we use these ropes to make window displays, bee skeps, bath mats and the various jutes and strings get crocheted and knitted into shower mitts, back scrubbers, wash gloves and tissue box covers.
Intensively handmade products with beautiful all nature fibres
