Fading stars of zardozi yearn to weave magic

Lucknow: Chand Miyan manoeuvers his e-rickshaw through the traffic snarls and his awkwardness tells you that he is a novice at driving.  

It does not take much to get him talking. “It has been just three weeks since I started driving this e-rickshaw. Pet ke liye kuchh to karna tha (I had to do something for a living),” he says.

 A little more prodding and the 62–year-old bearded man says that he is a zardozi artisan, who has been given the pink slip by his employer.

 “There were about 80 of us working in this ‘karkhana’ but the owner said that he could not continue with the loss-making business, and everyone was shown the door. We tried other places, but no one gave us work. It was the same story everywhere,” he recalls, admitting that he still yearns to weave zardozi magic with his fingers.

Chand Miyan’s two sons, Zeeshan and Naeem, are also zardozi artisans and both have started selling fruits after he forced joblessness.

“We earn more now. Between the three of us, we would get Rs  600 per day doing zardozi but now our income has increased but I miss the motifs and the stars that we embroidered,” says Chand Miyan.

Their former employer Rashid Siddiqui explains, “The business has gone for a toss. We had been facing tough competition from Chinese brocade material which is comparatively much cheaper than zardozi. Then demonetisation happened and we could no longer continue with cash transactions.”

“All our workers insist on working on a cash basis. Customers also stopped coming and orders had to be cancelled. The final blow has come with the newly-introduced GST on cloth and gold and silver thread,” says Mr Siddiqui.

While Mr Siddiqui has wound up his business and now plans to dabble into the hospitality sector, other zardozi outlets in Uttar Pradesh’s capital are also struggling to survive in the face of depleting profits.

 Ajay Kumar, who deals in zardozi as well as chikan goods, says that with GST on cloth has virtually erased profit and it is no longer feasible to continue in the business.

“The number of customers who value hand embroidery are also diminishing and the focus now is on readymade western wear,” he says.

 According to rough estimates, Lucknow alone once had more than one lakh zardozi craftsmen. Today, the number has dwindled to about 35,000. More than 10,000 artisans have switched to either plying e-rickshaw or selling fruits in the old city areas.

“There is no initiative on the part of the state government to keep the art alive. The business owners and the artisans are not treated as a votebank as there is no dominance of a particular community in the trade,” says Mr Kumar.

He also highlights the difficulties in taking their zardozi products to high-value markets and trying for a turnaround in fortunes.

“Designers from Mumbai and Delhi come and take away our goods at throwaway prices. They give them a label and make huge profits. If the government wants, it can set up cooperatives and given us facilities to directly sell our goods in the market,” says Mr Kumar.

Apart from Lucknow, zardozi work is primarily done in Barabanki, Rae Bareli, Sitapur, Hardoi and Unnao and the story gloom and slow decay in units of this traditional art is common to these centres too.

“It is a dying art and if the government does not take steps, the day is not far when zardozi will be spoken of in the past tense.  My ancestors made zardozi lehnghas and shararas which were worn by my grandmother and grand aunts and then my mother. I do not think that my grandchildren will even know what zardozi is all about,” says Chand Miyan as he moves on to another passenger, another destination.