Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh
Imran learned to carve at nine, sitting beside his grandfather in a Saharanpur lane where every doorway hides a workshop. Today he leads a team of eleven carvers specialising in sheesham jaali work, where a pattern is drawn on the wood, pierced with a fret saw and cleaned with chisels no wider than a matchstick. He still insists every headboard is carved from a single seasoned plank so the grain flows across the design.
