Aromas of Ramzan in the Walled City

Nearly three scores and a century after the British tried Bahadur Shah II for treason, Shahjahanabad might not have the glory of its Mughal days. But Old Delhi is still the place to be on a Ramadan night for the sumptuous flavours of Mughlai cuisine, prepared by chefs who claim their lineage to the Mughal kitchens, and the kebabs, tikka and firni on the streets. 

Giving it a second thought, it's not just the food that takes you back there every time. For all my soreness towards crowded streets, the narrow lanes of Chawri Bazar and Chandni Chowk with their overlapping human faces, numerous cycle rickshaws and youngsters who need to get their two-wheeler riding lessons straight have never been detterents. It's something from the past that draws you there, something that the 21st century lacks. 

He could't hold on until dusk to take a bite 

The Iftar at Jama Masjid on one of the last days of the holy month of Ramadan.

Believers leaving Jama Masjid after offering prayers and Iftar.

The crowded streets outside Jama Masjid where old city's delicacies will get you drooling. 

Big fat eats.

A shop that sells traditional sweets like firni, shahi tukda and varities of mango ice cream. 

Pensive-looking dry fruits seller.

Nassem bhai's fried chicken and kebabs.

Hot, juicy, chicken tikka cooks on charcoal.

Sewai, sweets and a family business.

Topiwala 

Sewai (vermicelli) is high on demand for various sweet recipes. 

And there is an overwhelming supply to meet that demand.

They never seem to get enough of those expensive dry fruits.

An old man offers namaz at Jama Masjid before Suhur - the meal consumed early in the morning before fasting. 

A calm Jama Masjid before believers start to flow in prior to Suhur.

(Copyright Milan George Jacob)

Through the papers

Some 'wise men' say it is dying. Well, it might or might not be but its absence on the teapoy, next to a cup of steaming tea, blemishes many a man's idea of a perfect morning. Those of you who get that edgy feeling without flipping its pages at dawn would be familiar with this character by now and for those of you who are pretending you still didn't get it, it comes by the name of the Times, the Post, the Mail, and the Tribunal to cite a few. 

Newspapers go through a long process, each time, before you hear the 'tring tring' at the gate and that folded material flying at you when you open you front door. (I'm definitely talking in the Indian context here.) All those empty hours at the desk before the reporters file their copies, wait a minute copies are in, and all those hours between this and the deadline which seem shorter than ever. The pages, once released, go to the controllers and then to the press around midnight. 

Subsequently, newspapers reach the circulation centres hours before daybreak, usually packed in bundles of 80. The distributors pay upfront for the day's newpapers and stack it according to their distribution areas. They receive their monthly payments from the subscribers.  

These distributors are unionized. For most of them, newspaper circulation is a second job for some addition revenue, besides their regular occupations. 

Newspapers reach the circulation centre usually packed in bundles of 80.

One of the distributors loading the required newspapers, for which he would have paid upfront, on to his bicycle.

A distributor arranging newspapers according to his circulation route.

One of the circulation centres at Connaught Place, New Delhi

A struggle to eke out a living

Tribal communities in hamlets around Gudur, the largest division in the Nellore district of the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, have their own distinctive tales to recount. Having endured years of class and caste oppression, they hang on to their lives depending on a range of diversified activities for their subsistence.

Agriculture and allied activities, shrimp farming, cattle rearing, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), seasonal migration and other odd jobs earn them their daily bread during the year.

The Reddy Yanadi settlement at Pidurupalem village in Manubolu mandal is a group of 50 families released from bonded labour, according to the NGO Association for Rural Development (ARD).

The villagers collectively own 35.8 acres of agricultural land where two crops of paddy are cultivated for eight to nine months a year, said P. Venkataramanan, a Yanadi agriculturalist. The irrigation department provides tank water for the crops.

Some of the villagers work on paddy fields of the richer Reddys, earning Rs. 250-300 per day while some of them work on shrimp farms, earning up to Rs. 4500 a month, he added.

ARD employee S. Hussain stated, “The villagers collect rats after the harvest, preserve and eat them. They also catch birds and fish as a means of livelihood. ”

Dairy farming provides the extras

“Cattle rearing is a source of income especially during off seasons. The village has an agricultural co-operative for men and a dairy co-operative for women,” added Hussain.

The mandal’s Lakshminarasimhapuram has a Challa Yanadi settlement, which is a disjoint ST colony of 14 families away from the main village. During the agricultural season, the Yanadis work on the fields of Reddys and Naidus.

Venkatamma Adipudi, a middle-aged Yanadi woman said, “Women earn Rs. 200 per day while men are paid Rs. 250 as agricultural labourers.”

Agricultural season lasts approximately three months and then up to ten families from the village migrate to Gudur and Nellore for the rest of the year. Labour in brick kilns and groundnut farms, and fishing are their off-season livelihoods. 

For those who prefer to keep it dry, Muni Sekhar and his bullocks are the passage to Madhavapuram

Madhavapuram in Vakadu mandal is an island village on the Pulicat Lake where 70 families evicted from Sriharikota, for the construction of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, have settled. Prior to the construction of the facility in 1971, the inhabitants were given eviction notices and a meager Rs. 1500 per acre as compensation. It has been a struggle for subsistence once they moved to the island. 

K. Valliprasad, Seemandhra State Backward Castes Association Secretary, said, “The villagers own one acre of agricultural land each, but without any title rights. One crop of paddy is cultivated every year with rain fed irrigation. However, shrimp farming is not possible here as the island falls under a protected forest area.”

Y. Balakrishna spraying pesticides on Madhavapuram's paddy fields

“MGNREGA is implemented in the village from January to August every year and the main job involves constructing bunds that prevent the lake’s salt water from entering the village fields,” he added.

According to Subbama, a villager, women work on casuarina tree plantations and are paid insufficiently. Men move to Sriharikota and Naidupet during the off-season for jobs such as woodcutting and construction, earning Rs. 300-400 a day. They fish in the Pulicat Lake for a month between December and January.

Villagers from Madhavapuram working on casuarina tree plantations

Nawabpet is another small coastal hamlet where families evicted from Sriharikota have settled. The village has a Muslim population and fishing is their prime source of livelihood. When they are unable to venture into the sea during cyclones and unfavourable climatic conditions, the villagers sell the casuarina trees to sustain. 

Chellaiah is one of the few non-fishermen in Nawabpet. Climbing coconut palms is his prime source of income and fishing provides for his subsistence.

Chittumaru mandal’s Yellasiri is a Reddy Yanadi settlement with 72 families where ARD has helped them reclaim 150 acres of land and each family was allotted one acre and 20 cents with the help of the District Collector.

A local social worker G. Venkateshwarlu said, “The Government issued them land in 2005 but the villagers did not know how it could be used. An agricultural co-operative was set up and the villagers were trained in locating their lands and reading land documents.”

“The reclamation process was completed in 2012. However, only 15 acres are under cultivation now as the rest of the land is yet to be levelled,” he added.

The allotted land had wild growth and clearing it was included under MGNREGA, fetching them an income.

Since they can work on their rain-fed land for only four months in a year, they earn Rs. 150 a day as labour on other fields. Cattle rearing is an additional source of income. 

A. Challamma earns Rs. 500-600 on a good day, selling dried fish

N. Logesh, presently working at Puttamraju Kandriga, the now famous 'Sachin village', earns Rs. 300 a day. 

Nearing Extinction - A story of the weavers of Venkatagiri

G Nagayya and his wife are still in drudgery at the dusk of their lives

Thirty-five-year old G. Kesavulu’s day begins at 5 a.m. He gets straight to work, which goes on until his first break at nine, when his wife, Shobha, takes over the machine for an hour. Kesavulu resumes work for a couple of hours and, when he breaks for lunch, Shobha takes over again for another hour. The cycle goes on until the couple are dead on their feet. All this toil earns them merely Rs. 8000 ($128) a month.

The couple are weavers of the famous Venkatagiri village, a hamlet known for its handloom tradition. They reside in a weavers’ colony at Bangarupeta, about 3 k.m. away from Venkatagiri in the South Indian State of Andhra Pradesh.

Kesavulu and his wife toil throughout the day to earn merely Rs 8,000 a month. 

Venkatagiri is known for its variety of handlooms. They produce sarees of pure cotton, cotton and silk mix, and pure silk. In their days of prosperity, these artisans weaved exclusively for the kings of the region and the income from this sufficed them for the whole year.

However, the modern day story is very different. This famous village of weavers is in crisis. The traditional art of weaving is likely to be extinct there with the last generation of seasoned fingers caressing the threads. Power looms have taken over and these artisans, who had carried on the legacy for generations, are paid a meagre remuneration for their labour.

The weavers, along with their old and the young, toil all day to keep the 500 odd looms in the village running. Nonetheless, the silence of the looms at Venkatagiri seems imminent.

In a single circular room, one half of which is occupied by a loom, G. Nagayya along with his wife Eeramma, are still in drudgery at the dusk of their lives. The other half of the room, serves as the cooking and living space for the couple who are in their 60s. They weave Venkatagiri-sada sarees (simple sarees), in the traditional way, unaided by machines.

Nagayya earns the traditional way, unaided by machines 

“Young people can weave four or six sarees a month but my wife and I being old, we can make only two.” The couple produce the material for the simple colour-blocked sarees at home, and sell them to a master weaver at Rs. 1000 ($16) a saree.

 “We get a pension of Rs. 1000 each. Including that, we manage with the Rs. 4000 ($64) that we make a month,” says Eeramma. “If we could do anything else, we wouldn’t be doing this.”

Nagayya’s progeny are also weavers and live close by. His grandchildren attend school and do not want to become weavers, but he is sure that weaving will not wither away. “There will always be slackers who won’t study and they won’t have any option but to resort to this. Weaving will continue forever.” Nagayya’s optimism itself reflected the irony of their lives.

Some weavers use CAD-punched sheets that can operate the loom

Earlier, every house had at least two looms, but now there is only one. “Weaving is dying,” says Kesavulu nonchalantly, as he labours away at his ‘machine loom’, standing in the pit from which he can operate the loom. He makes intricate movements with his hands. CAD-punched sheets that determine the design on sarees hang overhead, and cast a pattern of light and shadow on him. It takes his family four full days to finish a silk saree, if they push themselves to the limit for the entire period.

In the outer room, his wife Shobha spins the thread for the sarees on a floor charkha (spinning wheel), which most women in the village, old, and young are seen spinning away at, at all times. Further, she dyes the thread according to the specific colour scheme of each saree.

“If one of us falls sick we have to forego the income for those days. With our expenses, we can’t afford to fall behind even a single day,” she says.

Most weavers do not want the next generation to come into the profession as they do not see a future in it. 

Handloom production is for the most part, de-centralised, and a master weaver (trader), commissions small weavers to weave sarees, and at times, as in the case of Kesavulu, provides them with raw materials. Kesavulu sells a saree for Rs. 1500 ($24) which, he says, is sold in the market for about Rs. 6000 ($96).

Forty nine-year-old Lakka Srinivasulu, who calls himself a ‘designer and a weaver’, weaves some of the most labyrinthine designs on his sarees. It takes him almost five months to weave a saree that eventually earns him Rs. 1.5 lakhs ($2402). According to him, the remuneration depends on the skill level of a weaver. “I was lucky enough to be noticed by a master-weaver when I was young, and was able to learn a lot of designs.”

Srinivasulu is also a part-time lecturer at the Indian Institute of Handloom Technology at Venkatagiri, one of nine such institutes in the country. “The college has only two full-time teachers. I teach them Computer Aided Design and update them on the technology which, sadly, very few people can afford to keep up with.”

A master weaver commissions small weavers to weave sarees

In a house in the next street, sixteen-year-old P. Parvathi is sitting in one corner of a room holding a notebook, while her mother and grandmother are working on a loom at the front veranda. Parvathi says she wants to become a Telugu (the language of Andhra Pradesh) teacher. “There is no future in this profession,” she says uncomfortably. Her mother, Vani, who is 35, chimes in, “I will see my best so that my kids don’t have to resort to this.”

Ch. Ranagaraju, president of the local weavers association, and a weaver himself, sympathises with the younger generation who are looking for alternate employment. He said the government must support the weavers, for weaving to become a sustainable livelihood. “We went to Delhi a few months ago and met a Cabinet minister who promised to help us, but so far we haven’t heard anything from them. The government needs to concentrate on skill development.”

Lakshmiamma has been weaving since she was 14 and despite physical ailments, she still continues even in her 70s

Being the second largest employer after agriculture, India’s handloom sector is not just an important part of the economy, but it is also a part of the country’s cultural traditions.

According to the third National Handloom census (2009-10) there are 43.31 lakh (4.3 million ) weavers in India.

The Indian government does allocate some resources to the development of the handloom sector in its annual budget, but the numbers are shrinking every year. For instance, the allocation for the National Handloom Development Programme has decreased from Rs. 362 crore ($58 million approximately) in 2014-15 to Rs. 150.00 crore ($24 million approximately) in 2015-16.

Handloom is the second largest employer after agriculture

The various schemes for the welfare of weavers, including insurance, distress relief and occupational heath would not have a significant impact unless there is a marked increase in the budgetary support.

Handloom adopts environment friendly processes where energy consumption, capital investment and infrastructure requirements are minimal. In the current scenario where the push for a greener technology is stronger than ever, the survival of handlooms and hand-spinning is imperative.

(The story was co-written with Sadhana Chathurvedula and originally published in Contributoria )