When Hillary Clinton spent three hours buying rugs

When Hillary Clinton spent three hours buying rugs
TANMAYA KUMAR NANDA

NEW DELHI, MARCH 16: Manzoor Wangnoo will never forget that summer night of 1995, when Hillary Clinton came calling at his Kashmiri carpets and artefacts shop at the shopping arcade at Maurya Sheraton. Bearing testimony to that visit are two framed letters. While one is signed by the most powerful man in the world, the other is a handwritten note from his wife. And understandably, it is these letters that Wangnoo cherishes more than anything else.

Wangnoo recalls it was 10 pm and he was just about to close shop when he notied the security men swinging into action. ``I told my son to go to the lobby and take a look,'' he says. One of Hillary's staff members had been to the shop earlier in the day, and she pointed out Wangnoo to her.

The US First Lady stepped into the shop and stayed put for a full three hours. Evidently thrilled with what she saw, she even called down daughter Chelsea at around 11 pm to have a dekko. ``It was amazing, she spent 15 minutes with the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, but three hours here. And as she was leaving, she said, `I'll come back tomorrow','' Wangnoo remembers. And so she did, spending another hour the next morning, sorting through rugs and carpets.

``Today, I was told by Richard Jaculca, who was with her then too, that my rugs adorn her home in New York,'' says Wangnoo proudly, who also happens to be the official supplier of rugs to the King of Thailand.

And Hillary has obviously got a fan in Wangnoo, who just can't stop raving about her. ``If I were an American, I'd certainly vote for her,'' he says. ``She is so unlike our politicians, she's so down-to-earth, and mixed so easily with all of us here.''

According to Wangnoo, the First Lady has a keen eye for colours. And in the many photographs that he treasures, you can catch the First Lady, selecting rugs in rapt attention. ``She liked my rugs the most, but Chelsea preferred runners and papier mache curios,'' he says. ``Even Chelsea has a tremendous sense of colour. She liked a runner, but not the colour, so she asked me to customise one for her.'' What's more, they paid for everything, unlike ``our own politicians''.

And this time, he's even got a special something specially made for President Bill Clinton, but he refuses to disclose what it is. ``It's a surprise, and it's like nothing else in the world. We are all hoping that he too will visit us. I want him to just see it,'' says an expectant Wangnoo.