From the Banks of the Ganges to the Heart of the Blue Ridge

How Rakesh and Dolly Agarwal's journey from hardship to abundance shaped a legacy of giving

Dolly Agarwal, Aditi Sethi, Rakesh Agarwal. Photo Credit: Jonathan Pillot.

There is a particular kind of generosity that can only be forged in hardship — one rooted not in abundance, but in memory. Rakesh Agarwal knows what it is to have nothing. And it is precisely that knowledge that has made him and his wife Dolly among the most quietly transformative philanthropists in Western North Carolina.

Rakesh grew up in Varanasi, one of the oldest and most sacred cities in the world, on the banks of the Ganges River between New Delhi and Calcutta. His childhood was one of profound scarcity. There was no running water, no access to health care. His family lived in mud huts, and his mother cooked the family's one or two daily meals over a coal stove. In a region where millions labored in the weaving and rug industry, young Rakesh found his calling in the craft — and proved exceptional at it. Out of artisans across the region, he was selected as one of just six young people worldwide by the Wool Foundation to travel to Tokyo for advanced training in rug-making. It was a turning point that set the rest of his life in motion.

A Suitcase and a Dream

In 1985, Rakesh arrived in the United States with Dolly — who had grown up in circumstances not unlike his own — and their young daughter Aanchal. He had trained as an engineer at one of India's leading technology universities; she had been raised to be a homemaker. But America had a way of rewriting plans. He accepted a position as production manager for a Hendersonville rug maker. The $12,000 annual salary had sounded kingly back in India. With a wife and child to support, he could barely make rent.

Dolly went to work at The World of Clothing, running the retailer's fledgling rug department. After his day shift, Rakesh would come help her. On many nights, little Aanchal was tucked in atop a pile of rugs to sleep while her parents worked. From 1986 to 1995, Rakesh worked from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Spinning Wheel Rugs, then returned to World of Clothing from 6 p.m. until midnight. Nearly a decade of double shifts, of quiet sacrifice. He eventually rose to CEO of World of Clothing, and together the Agarwals grew the rug department to $11 million in annual sales, drawing customers from 100 miles away.

When they settled into their Hendersonville neighborhood, the Agarwals found themselves next door to an elderly couple who quickly became dear to young Aanchal — and she to them. Her real grandparents were an ocean away in India, unreachable for a family still finding its footing. The neighbors stepped tenderly into that role. "If it had been up to the three of them," Rakesh recalls with a smile, "we would have carved a tunnel underground for her to go straight into their house!" The bond deepened over the years, lasting well into Aanchal's high school and college years.

The Art of the Deal

In 1995, with a $500,000 investment, Rakesh and Dolly opened Rug & Home in a 20,000-square-foot showroom near Biltmore Square Mall in Asheville. The first two years nearly broke them. But they did not break. They found their footing, leaned into their sourcing advantage, and watched the business take flight. In the early years, Rakesh trekked to Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan to source carpets directly from weavers, bypassing brokers in New York and London whose margins made exotic rugs unaffordable to everyday Americans. It was intrepid, sometimes dangerous work — but it gave Rug & Home an edge no competitor could easily replicate. Over time, his deep relationships with weavers allowed him to subtly shape the products themselves. 

By 2000, Rug & Home was ranked No. 69 on Entrepreneur magazine's "Hot 100" list of America's fastest-growing new businesses. In 2005, the company was named National Rug Retailer of the Year. Today, with five locations across the Carolinas and an inventory of over 50,000 rugs and home furnishings, the company celebrates its 30th anniversary — a remarkable testament to what shrewd buying and relentless perseverance can build.

Aanchal serves as the company's chief operating officer. After graduating from UNC Wilmington, she committed herself to running Rug & Home someday — a succession her parents are carefully, if not always easily, embracing. Dolly has stepped back her hours. Rakesh, who has no hobbies and rarely takes time off, admits the transition is harder for him. "I am trying to take a back seat," he says. The smile in his voice suggests he's still working on it.

A Legacy of Giving

The Agarwals' philanthropy began long before Western North Carolina knew their names. Back in India, they took Yale university medical students and collaborated with resident doctors to create health clinics in their homeland, extending to strangers eye exams, cataract surgery ies and focusing on women’s health. The hospital that they partnered with was on the verge of bankruptcy but six years later, it was a thriving hospital thanks to the Agarwal’s financial support.  

In America, their giving took shape around the relationships and experiences that had most deeply marked their lives. Their first major gift came naturally, from the heart. As the years passed and their beloved neighbors aged, one of them fell ill and needed hospice care. The Agarwals stepped in without hesitation — bringing food, offering comfort, sitting with their friends as Four Seasons Hospice came in to provide the care that allowed them to live, and ultimately to die, with dignity. They gave $100,000 to Four Seasons — not as a transaction, but as a tribute. That endowment gift did more than honor a moment; it created a permanent stream of support that continues to sustain Four Seasons' work long after the check was written. Then they turned their financial support to Pardee’s Cancer Center. 

Their next act of giving grew from a grief closer to home. Dolly watched her own mother slowly disappear to dementia — a long, bewildering farewell that unfolded in India, where the supports needed to care for someone with memory loss are scarce. Her siblings and extended family bore the weight of caring for their matriarch largely alone, without guidance, resources, or respite, as her mind quietly left her. That experience led the Agarwals to MemoryCare of Asheville, an organization devoted to supporting the family caregivers of people living with memory challenges — from mild cognitive decline to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. For Dolly, it was personal. For the families MemoryCare serves, the Agarwal’s gift was lifesaving.

Now, in 2026, the Agarwals have directed their generosity toward Emberlight: Center for Conscious Living & Dying, committing $100,000 to open its first endowment fund. Founded in 2022 and nestled in the Swannanoa Valley, Emberlight has become a national model for reimagining end-of-life care — offering direct resident care, doula training, community education, and conscious living programs, all at no cost to those it serves. At the Sanctuary, residents and their families are supported physically, emotionally, and spiritually during life's final chapter, surrounded by a community of more than 200 volunteers whose daily acts of presence and service embody Emberlight's animating conviction: that no one should die without love.

Emberlight was founded by Dr. Aditi Sethi, a palliative care and hospice physician who spent years at Asheville's inpatient hospice, the Solace Center, before a singular experience transformed her path. She accompanied a young man named Ethan Sisser diagnosed with glioblastoma, a devastating brain cancer, whose dying wish was to leave the world surrounded by community. Aditi brought together a group of strangers and found a home for him to die surrounded by tremendous presence and care. His final days are documented in the film The Last Ecstatic Days. What she witnessed moved her to build something new: a center grounded in the belief that how we die is as important as how we live, and that communities can be educated and empowered to hold that passage with intention and grace. "At Emberlight, we honor dying as a deeply human experience that deserves presence, dignity, and love," Dr. Sethi has said. "This generous gift not only sustains our ability to care for residents and their families without financial barriers — it also supports the heartbeat of our community."

For the Agarwals, the connection to Emberlight runs deeper than mission alignment. Dr. Sethi, like them, came from India. She is, as Rakesh might put it, another bridge — between cultures, between the clinical and the sacred, between a life fully lived and a death consciously met. "I met Dr. Aditi, who is also a musician, at a kirtan she was playing and learned about Emberlight. I saw the peace and compassion surrounding her work, and Dolly and I knew this was something special," Rakesh said. "Supporting people in their final days was important to us on a personal level and is a vital and meaningful way we can serve our community."

"It's certainly a health care initiative," he added, "but equally as important to me is building bridges."

In Emberlight, the Agarwals have found an organization that builds exactly that. And in the Agarwals, Emberlight has found donors whose generosity is inseparable from their story — woven, like the finest rugs they have spent a lifetime collecting, from threads of hardship, love, and an unshakeable belief in the dignity of every human life.

From mud huts on the Ganges to a thriving business in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Rakesh and Dolly Agarwal have never forgotten where they came from. And it is that memory, more than anything, that continues to light the way forward.