MYSTICAL LAND OF INDIA

When I refused the assignment, the word from on high was, fine. How about India, then?

Okay, I hesitated again. There is, I pointed out, a State Department warning cautioning everyone to get out of India and Pakistan, and certainly not to make a point of going there. But my loyalty to Designer Monthly knows no bounds, and in a way, this trip seemed a natural. After all, I take Power Yoga classes with the best of them, and I enjoy a nice meal of bhagan bharta and chicken korma at the gorgeously expensive Dawat Restaurant. So I packed up the Louis Vuitton and before I knew it I was emerging from the plane on the tarmac of the mystical land of India.

If you've been hesitating about traveling to India because you're afraid it will be overwhelmingly crowded with terrible poverty and the threat of weird diseases and rumors of war, you're right. But some parts of India are so beautiful that they shouldn't be missed: the most popular part is called the Golden Triangle, comprised of Delhi and the monuments of Agra and Jaipu. Of course, if you fly into Kolcata, you won't be fooled by the clever name change: by any other name this city, formerly known as Calcutta, is still bustling, busy, noisy, and fabulously colorful.

For a change of pace, you might want to try the holy city of Varanasi.

India also has remarkable natural beauty, beautiful, haunting music, and delicious food that is unequaled by the fare you get even in the best Indian restaurants in America, but you have to be prepared that you won't be able to slip into an lovely air conditioned cafe‚ on every corner.

Somehow I managed to make it there just before the September monsoon season began, but only once I was there did I learn that the best time to go, warnings of war aside, is between October and March, so maybe this information will be helpful to you, my faithful readers.

If you do go in the winter, you might want to try to hit November, for the colorful Camel Festival at Pushkar in Rajasthan. The joyous festival of Diwali (or Deepavali) also takes place in November, over the course of five days of firecrackers, sweet delicacies, and lots of lights.

Even though I was traveling there at perhaps the worst time of year, I found that shopping opportunities always abound, and I discovered that India does happen to be home to some of the best floor coverings in the world, making it worth the trip.

One of the great misnomers in interior design is the use of the term "oriental carpeting." Often, this term is used to denote carpeting that is actually made in India and the Middle East; these carpets are about as "Oriental" as my antique Queen Anne armoire.

India is actually the locus for designs from many other areas of Indo-China, including what we call Persian designs, and patterns and techniques adopted from Afghanistan, Turkey, China, Morocco and France.

As rug-making grew and developed over the centuries, each region developed its own distinct style, depending on weather conditions, availability of materials, and local customs.

It's no wonder that these carpets have a rich look that seems downright royal: they've been in production for more than 2000 years, originally for emperors. Many of them are made of wool, but Kashmir silk is often used as well, giving a rug that luxurious feeling under bare feet. One story has it that one kind of carpet, the Indian pile carpet, was first made by Persian carpet weavers in the palace of Akabar, the Mughal emperor, who were the first to use woven silk and wool in pile carpeting.

If you're very particular about the quality of the rug you're buying, find out about the number of knots: the finer the carpet, the greater the number of knots, and, predictably, the higher the price. The Bokhara carpets are among the world's finest, with 125-500 knots in a square inch.

After examining the rugs in the open market, I moved on the sari stall, where the silks shivered in the air, each one delicately decorated with a design in gold thread. I realized, fingering the fine fabric, that decorating with Indian items didn't need to begin and end with the floor coverings; what a nice mood enhancer a swath of sari silk would be, hanging from the curtain rod or draped over the back of the sofa. Or even, perhaps, draped around me as I host an Indian dinner party back in Manhattan.

I wonder if Dawat has carry out.

Reprinted with permission from the Sheffield School of Design www.sheffield.edu