‘Only they who understand the intricacies of misgari will appreciate the hard work that goes into producing a copperware item and will be willing to pay its price commensurate with the work that went into its making.’ Khwaja Safar Ali says referring to a copper plate he has in his home.
Constructed from twenty different sheets of copper heated to glowing redness to be stitched together, weighing some ten kilograms and engraved and chased with intricate patterns, the plate took four months of painstaking work. But today the buyer who would be aware of the value of the work is hard to come by. And so Safar Ali has not been offered the asking price of Rs 200,000. He produced it knowing well enough that it may be months before he might find a buyer for it. This piece was a labour of love for Ali. It epitomises his pride in the craft kept by his family through several generations.
Legend has it that Alexander, having crossed the river, fought his epic battle against Raja Paurava and made peace with the Punjabi king, paused to inspect the state of his army’s weaponry. Finding most of it much the worse for wear and in urgent need of repair, he sought the nearest armourer. Such an establishment, he was informed, was at Wazirabad. Thence his quartermaster went and had the armament refurbished.
But that is only legend. When Alexander entered this part of the country there was no township worthy of notice on the site of modern Wazirabad. Also, we must remember that in his train Alexander had a full complement of armourers, as well as other artisans. However, what seems likely is that when Wazirabad was founded in the 1640s by Emperor Shah Jehan’s courtier, Wazir Khan, families of cutlers and armourers may have been established in the new township to cater to the requirements of the army in camp.
The armourers appear to have done well for just two centuries later, we hear of their great prowess. Greatly appreciative of a set of cuirasses received as a gift from King Louis Philippe of France, Maharaja Ranjit Singh ordered for the armour to be replicated for use by his own army. The craftsmen deemed up to the task worked in Wazirabad. The copies they produced were so perfect as to earn the most lavish admiration of the Maharaja.
Not long afterwards the Gazetteer of the Gujranwala District (1884) tells us travellers passing through Wazirabad were offered ‘many-bladed pocket knives bristling with hooks, screw-drivers, and other contrivances more calculated to display the ingenuity of the maker than to serve the convenience of the purchaser.’ This trade, it is recorded, had been established ‘for a long time’. Among the manufacture of Wazirabad the Gazetteer enumerates guns, pistols, swords, razors and spears.
The reputation of Wazirabad as a cutlery making centre has not dwindled with the passing of years. Today there are dozens of establishments where men in clothes stained by iron dust work the forge or pore over grinding wheels to sharpen and polish scissors and knives of varied descriptions. These small hovels, ill-lit and cluttered, produce low and medium quality wares for the local market. On the other end is a firm of New Stainless Industries. Behind its unpretentious exterior in Arif Shaheed Road, there is enough weaponry to start a small-scale mediaeval war.
Owned by a family of Chadda Rajputs, this house was established in the waning days of Sikh rule by a sire of the current crop of young managers. Family tradition relates that their business has always been arms and armament manufacture and it may well be that the cuirass so admired by the Maharaja may have been produced by their ancestors. What is certain is that they have been producing cutlery and arms for the local market for nearly two centuries.
After 1857 the family was engaged by the British Indian army to supply what is locally known as the suway wala chaku – a multi-purpose pocket knife. Being a part of the soldiers’ kit, it was required in large numbers and kept the establishment busy for almost a century. The Chadda forge also hand produced gun barrels in the period between the two World Wars. As well as that, the Sikh kirpan was a major production; this establishment also supplied bayonets to the British Indian army during World War II.
After Partition, the market shrank and for twenty years, the Chadda business floundered. Casting about the German market in the late 1960s, the family received a tentative order for a knife with a thirty centimetre (12”) blade and stag horn hilt. Replicating the piece was no problem, but stag horn being unavailable, camel bone was used instead. Such was the ingenuity of working the camel bone to imitate stag horn that the buyer approved of the sample and placed an order for the supply of three hundred pieces. The Chaddas’ New Stainless Industry has never looked back since.
Several generations of experience as sword and knife manufacturers now came into play. Using the German dagger as a model, a set of six knives was designed. While the chassis was the same as the original, there were minor artistic innovations and the Germans excitedly placed an enlarged order for the new models as well. This was the early 1970s and the company was then working with just twenty-five men, producing everything by hand.
By the mid-1970s, the Chaddas had come a long way from supplying the suway wala chaku to the British Indian Army. Their market had now expanded from Germany to USA and with it their workforce to two hundred. Yet the company found it difficult to meet the burgeoning demand. Seeing that their suppliers were keen workers, the German and American buyers purchased the requisite machinery and shipped it out to Wazirabad. This was no free gift, however: the buyers were to deduct ten percent from each invoice to pay for the machinery.
Today the company’s major buyers are in USA, Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Australia with USA leading the market. Their line comprises over six hundred different swords, daggers, hunting and pocket knives – of this number a little over one hundred are swords of various kinds.
Many of the swords and daggers are the staple for fantasy films coming out of Hollywood. Others are replicas of weapons used by famous historical personages. Today these are collectors’ items that adorn innumerable walls in Western homes. So far as knives and daggers go, there being fewer restrictions on the carrying of such weapons in Western countries, they have are essential for hunters and outdoorsmen.
Back in the 1880s, the Gazetteer had noted that while the forging skills of the cutlers of Wazirabad were exceptional, they were offset by the poor quality steel in use as well as the imperfect polish and finish. New Stainless Industry has come a long way for they now use the finest quality steel with modern finishing techniques. If anything can be indicative of quality, it is that rather than have the manufacturer’s logo, foreign buyers ask for their own brand names to be appliquéd upon the finished product.
Labels: A Chorus for Craft, Crafts
posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:13,
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The swashbuckling Alexander Burnes, soldier, explorer and philandering spy for the British East India Company, sailed up the Indus from Thatta in 1836. In the vicinity of Dera Ismail Khan, he reported upon the adornment of local women. Among other items he noticed some of them wearing necklaces of cloves. Strangely, he did not make any further inquiries regarding this somewhat odd piece of bodily decoration.
At that time the clove necklace appears to have been a prized and everyday item of feminine adornment along the Indus from the vicinity of Rajanpur (south of Dera Ghazi Khan) all the way to Kalabagh and westward as far as Kohat and Bannu. In the course of time, Dera Ismail Khan may have lost this tradition, but it lives on from Rajanpur through Dera Ghazi Khan to the two cities of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. All along, the artisans of this peculiar craft are strictly women.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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About a millennium ago, somewhere in the balmy climes of Gujarat a man given to the pleasures of intoxication came upon a brilliant idea. From snorting burning opium or marijuana directly and losing much of it from the burner, he devised a means of drawing the vapour by pipe to filter it through water. That was the essence, but surely it would have taken a period of experimentation before the first hookah was crafted from the empty shell of the coconut.
Filled with water, the shell was fitted with two pipes. One topped with a pottery cone to hold the narcotic on embers; the other was the inhaler. The bottom end of the former dipped into the water in the shell in order to filter out harmful elements of the intoxicant – or so it was thought.
Labels: A Chorus for Craft, Crafts
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Every year when the flow in the Hunza River rises with the summer thaw, Qudratullah Baig prowls its banks below his native village of Nasirabad in Hunza. He seeks timber washed down from orchards and forests higher up the valley. In his mid fifties, he can tell the difference between mulberry, the preferred timber, and apricot or almond – all hardwoods good for the stringed musical instruments he crafts in his living room.
A naturally gifted singer and musician, Qudratullah taught himself to play the chharda (local version of the rubab) at an early age. Unable to afford the purchase of his own, he played borrowed instruments until the day at a family function where he was asked to perform. Thinking the chharda was being gifted him, he was devastated when, at the end of his performance, it was taken away. He resolved never again to play another man’s musical instrument.
Read more »Labels: A Chorus for Craft, Crafts
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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‘There are many qualities of wool in Sind [sic], black, brown and white. A good deal of it, especially of the black, is worked locally into blankets and saddle-bags.’ Thus notes a British civil servant in the year 1906. He goes on to observe that in
Tharparkar this wool is put to good use producing ‘blankets’, locally termed khatha. Similar to the kambli of the Deccan, this white-coloured product is, we are told, ‘finer in texture, the wool of which it is made being superior.’
Produced on narrow width handlooms and used more as cold weather attire than as bedding, these are, properly, shawls. Woven in two feet width, two panels in length measuring nine feet each are sewn together to create a single piece. Intricately woven in brightly coloured patterns along the border, the shawls are masterpieces of craftsmanship of the finest order. Unlike some shawls woven with cotton warp, the khatha is still, weft and warp, entirely sheep wool.
Read more »Labels: A Chorus for Craft, Crafts
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Lockwood Kipling knew of Dera Ismail Khan’s famous lac turnery in the 1880s. He was amazed by the ‘microscopic fineness’ of the ‘maze of fernlike scrolls’ and praised the choice of colours that went into the work. ‘The work may be considered the most tasteful and refined of all lac turnery in the Punjab, as there is an entire absence of crude and glaring colours, with a definite system of ornamentation,’ he wrote.
In Kipling’s time, the timber used was mainly shisham. Among the several households practicing the art at the time, the scroll work was done mainly by women. Men only worked the hand lathe or jundri, which gives its name to the craft, to machine the timber into shape and apply successive coats of colour. But for the past several decades the craft is handled entirely by men. At that time, a good deal of this work ended up being exported to Britain. Even today, its greatest patrons are foreigners based in Islamabad with a small number of local supporters. And shisham has been replaced by tamarisk as the main timber.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The art of crafting rings from the horns of wild goat became popular because it was soon seen that such a ring worn on leprosy-stricken fingers cured the dreaded disease. There may be no scientific confirmation of this but many believe in the therapeutic quality of these unique rings. Others wear them for their striking and vibrant colours.
Islamuddin of Chitral town claims his father was the creator of the first-ever such ring. Except the claim is contestable on the grounds that the art of fashioning rings from horns is known to have been practiced in Chitral from a time much before that time. What is true, though, is that these delightfully colourful rings are made only in Chitral. Nowhere else across the district or swathe of Gilgit-Baltistan are they to be found.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:02,
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Archaeological research shows that soapstone cookware was in use around 3000 BCE. In fact, it may well be traced back much farther, leading us to contend that the first meal ever cooked by our primitive ancestors came off a soapstone crock. Easy to work, the soft stone comprising nearly 80 percent magnesium takes a long time to heat. Once done, it conserves the heat keeping its contents warm for a considerable duration. Those who use it believe it lends a subtle but distinct flavour to the food.
Discoveries in Indus Valley cities of Pakistan show baked soapstone beads in use 5,000 years ago. Though we find no crockery from the same material at the time, there is every likelihood it was in use. What we do know for certain is that from Chitral in the west to Baltistan in the east, communities in the mountain country were using soapstone pottery when the first European explorers ventured into our northern mountains. As little as 40 years ago, soapstone cooking utensils were still to be found in many homes. Today, these pieces, long disused, sit dust-laden in museums.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 14:00,
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There was a time colourful rugs adorned the homes of nobility in Sindh and Bahawalpur. Known as farasi in the south and falasi in Bahawalpur, they were produced by a very busy cottage industry for a market that was ready and wanting. Whatever the artisan, traditionally always women, could bring off the handloom, was quickly lapped up. Turnover was swift; recompense for the long hours over the loom good. Inevitably, every village had several households practicing the craft. Today, these masterpieces of weaving are getting harder to come by.
The word farasi, sometimes pronounced farashi, is clearly a corruption of farsh, Persian cognate for floor covering. Baloch families of Badin claim they brought farasi weaving to Sindh some four to five hundred years ago. At home on the vast, wind-scoured desert plateau of western Balochistan, the dirt floor of their dark goats hair tents was adorned with these hardy, virtually wear-resistant rugs. In that khaki landscape of flying sand and dust, this was one flamboyant riot of colour.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:27,
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According to legend, the ancient town of Kech, known variously as Turbat, boasted some 2,000 leather embroiderers and cobblers. Today, Qazi Lal Buksh is the last remaining practitioner of chakankari or leather needlework, at least in Balochistan. By his account, it was because of the large population of these artisans that the town’s precinct of Kosh Kalat – literally Shoe Fortress – took its name.
While he continues to craft women’s slippers, male footwear has gone out of fashion. The latter was a shoe with an upturned toe, equipped with a sewn anklet that sometimes reached up to the knee like greaves used by horse riders. The design for the shoe came down through nearly two millenniums of equestrian history. As well as that, there was the elaborate bandolier.
Labels: A Chorus for Craft, Crafts
posted by Salman Rashid @ 12:16,
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Crafts, like all other inventions, are parented by human needs. Sometimes this birth takes place by sheer fluke. The first drum played a hundred thousand years ago, if not earlier, was perhaps nothing more than a termite-ridden trunk of a felled tree pounded with a club to loosen grubs to feed upon. Played to a cadence, the hollow sound morphed into music. Simil arly, some 50,000 years later, the first stringed instrument may arguably have been a hunter’s bow indifferently strummed during the wait to spot game.
Anthropological research suggests our Neanderthal ancestors were wearing colourful shaped and polished stone pendants as early as 60,000 years ago. They were also interring their dead with similar ornaments and powdered dyes.
Read more »Labels: A Chorus of Craft, Book of Days 2016, Crafts
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Humans are known to have experimented with clay for nearly 30,000 years when they first began to create figurines for domestic and ritual use. But it was with the establishment of the first settlements that works of clay were mass produced. From the first sun-dried objects it was only a short way to fired pieces. The basic pit kiln firing at 800 degrees Celsius was followed by the updraft kiln capable of attaining temperatures of up to 1200 degrees as seen in
Harappa dating as far back back as 2400 BCE. Working clay into ringing terracotta had come of age.
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| A red slip is applied to a miniature Harappan urn before painting it in the same ancient style |
As he sits on the edge with his feet turning the wheel in the shallow pit to turn the smaller wheel on which he shapes the formless lump of moist clay, Mohammad Bashir of Harappa knows he keeps an ancient tradition alive. Belonging to the Kumhar or potter clan, Bashir follows a family profession handed down through more generations than he can count. Though he does not know how long man has been creating clay objects, he says that living in riverine areas like the Punjab, there was never any shortage of material and it was only natural for it to be put to use.
Read more »Labels: A Chorus of Craft, Book of Days 2016, Crafts
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The sun has just dipped beneath the dunes, setting the western horizon ablaze. Overhead, a copper-toned waxing moon hangs against the first stars of night. The sand, already beginning to cool, tempers the desert air soughing through the branches of the kundi tree where four or five owlets engage in a nattering argument. The day done for him, Allah Vasaya leans back against the bolster on his charpoy under the kundi.
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| Ready bells of the three different sizes and tenors |
From the direction of the toba – the pond that slakes man and beast alike – he hears the clangour of livestock bells and he recognises the deep, resonant bhoongan sound of the one his prized bull wears. The animals are drinking for the night and soon the bull will lead the rest of Allah Vasaya’s livestock home. Minutes later, the ringing becomes a medley of sounds from the bells of his cows and the smaller ones worn by sheep and goats.
Read more »Labels: A Chorus of Craft, Book of Days 2016, Crafts
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Beginning eight years ago with
Tales Less Told, Pakistan Petroleum Ltd again asked me to prepare a theme for their diary and table calendar for the year 2016. After some deliberation Saquib Hanif, the company’s Chief Public Relations Officer (who has since moved on to a higher position) and I decided to do something on crafts.
But we did not want to do what has already been flogged to death by the usual run of the mill diaries. We resolved to look at crafts that are on the verge of dying. Now, in the more than three decades of my life as a traveller, I had seen most of the crafts at some time or the other. In those years I had sometimes worried about the precarious condition of the practitioners of those fine crafts: nearly all of them complained their income was far from commensurate with the hard work and time they put into their creations. Many of them were not teaching their children their craft. Conversely, if they were, the children were not practicing it because it put bread on the table with some difficulty.
Over the years I had felt we would lose these crafts. And indeed we have lost many. Others continue to hang on by a mere thread. There is one, the lacquer work turnery of Dera Ismail Khan, that has picked up. According to Fahim Awan, the master craftsman, it was after I wrote a piece for Herald in 2003 that he started receiving buyers and his business picked up.
In the course of this work for next year’s diary, I learned that some of these crafts are dying because the ordinary city dweller has no idea what can be had. In our ignorance we prefer synthetic rubbish over the finest pieces of creation ranging from rugs to shawls, to shoes, to stoneware.
For next year’s publication, I picked twelve artisans and their craft that most Pakistanis would not even imagine exist. The work took me from
Turbat to Badin to
Chitral and to a remote corner of
Baltistan. I visited Kashmore, Dera Ismail Khan and Thar and a few other places. On purpose I keep this secret for the time being so that you strive to get a copy of the diary. If not, follow the
blog to read through the year what we are about to lose forever.
Once again, the work for the diary is an appeal to the institutions and the people of Pakistan to save what they can. But once again I fear my appeal will go unheard.
Labels: A Chorus of Craft, Book of Days 2016, Crafts
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The Apricot Road to Yarkand
Sea Monsters and the Sun God: Travels in Pakistan
Salt Range and Potohar Plateau
Prisoner on a Bus: Travel Through Pakistan
Between Two Burrs on the Map: Travels in Northern Pakistan
Gujranwala: The Glory That Was
Riders on the Wind
Books at Sang-e-Meel
