The manji, the charpai, is a wooden frame on four legs strung with rope in a woven pattern. It is a bed, a seat, a stretcher, a table, a place to dry chillies and, turned on its side against a wall, a door.
The frame is tarkhan work in tahli or kikar. The stringing is a separate skill, done in a specific over-and-under sequence with a tightening at the head, and a badly strung manji sags in a month.
The peerhi is the low stool made the same way, and the peerha is the larger version. All of them come out into the courtyard in the evening and go back in.
In summer they go on the roof, and half the population of a Punjab village sleeps outside from May to September.
Nylon rope replaced the traditional twisted cotton and munj grass, which lasted longer and was less comfortable. The frames are now often steel.
The manji is a wooden frame strung with jute or cotton tape, woven in patterns that vary by household and by region, and it is the bed, the seat and the meeting furniture of a Punjabi house.
It is repaired rather than replaced. Restringing is a trade, done by men who come through the villages, and a frame outlives several sets of tape.
The weave patterns are decorative and are recorded nowhere. What is displacing them is plastic tape and the folding cot, both of which last less time and cannot be restrung.