Strings Attached

The green monsoon gives way to the sweet autumn whiff. Post Diwali, the air unmistakably brings with it a nip which hints of the cold December that would follow. The earth never gives up on its routine of going around the Sun in circles. How dutiful. Think of the day when Sun calls in sick?! Or the mother earth going on a privilege leave?

The receding of monsoon coincides with the onset of a string of festivities in India. Starting from Rakshabandhan in August, it goes on till well past Makarsankranti, coming to a brief lull after the festival of Holi in March. And certain parts of India do more justice to these festivities than other. I am ready to bet my horse (though imaginary, it’s the only creature in this world that gets my jokes) that Ahmedabad is right up there in the list of such places. Be it the unending firecrackers during Diwali or the Croers worth of Jalebi and Fafda that are gastronomically cornered on Dusshera – Ahmedabad knows how to celebrate with abandon. However no mention of Ahmedabad and its festive spirit is even remotely true and justified if it does not include Garba and Uttrayana – the two festivals so distinctively Gujarati. Unique indeed are these festivals to Gujarat and any attempt to either celebrate Garba or fly kites the way Gujarat does, is a pitiable sham at best.   

While movies and other popular media have revealed a thing or two about Garba, Uttrayana still remains a fare that no amount of description would do justice to. It is only to be seen to be believed. Every year on the day of Makarsankranti (better known as Uttrayana in Gujarat), every Gujarati worth his salt indulges in kite flying. He does so with a pomp known only to kings – blaring music playing from huge speakers from every third terrace, cool shades and hats to look the sun (and the beautiful neighbor) into the eye, eating ‘Undhiyu’ (dripping in gallons of oil and spice) by the tones. The average Amdavadi remains on the terrace from dawn to dusk but his appetite for the frolic still remains insatiated, so the kite flying extends well into the night (by flying lighted Tukkals) and the next day (Vansi Uttrayana or Stale Uttrayana) also.   

And that the fingers get cut by the sharp manja while flying kite, means nothing and is unable to dampen the festive spirit. This made me think of the people central to the whole business of kite flying the Amdavadi style – the manja makers. These are the people, nay workers, who take the raw thread and give it a coating of color and glass powder (which gives the manja its sharpness). The whole process of thus coating the raw thread is called ‘Dori rangavi’ or ‘getting the thread colored’.

The story of these manja makers is indeed the story of an industry in itself - excluding the raw thread that is; which usually comes from established players in the textile industry viz. Vardhman, Coats etc. But the process of coating this thread and the people involved in it makes for a fascinating story. These manja makers are a special clan. Every year, just as the soot from Diwali firecrackers settles and the business in cities of Gujarat reopens after a longish break, this tribe of manja makers starts making its way into these cities. They come mostly from the cities of Lucknow, Agra and Barelie in UP or the villages around them. Every year they make cities like Ahmedabad in Gujarat their temporary homes and places of work for about three months. They would stay and work here till 14^th of January, the day of Makarsankranti.

Coating the raw thread – the process which converts thread into a razor sharp kite-string or manja, ready for the battle in the sky – is a specialized skill. The manja makers prepare a special mixture having a dough-like consistency by mixing together specific and customized raw materials viz. a paste of mashed cooked rice, colour, other stickening agents and the most important ingredient of them all – glass powder. The raw thread in the mean time is tied out between two poles separated by a distance roughly equal to or slightly more than the length of a cricket pitch. The manja makers take the special dough in one hand and use the fingers in other hand to carefully segregate and hold the strands individually. Thus using their bare hands, one segregating individual strands and the other holding the glass-powder loaded dough, these manja makers go about converting the innocuous white thread into razor-sharp manja.         

Invariably their fingers are heavily strapped with gauze tape; both to nurse existing cuts as well as to protect them from fresh cuts. But cut they invariably do. Imagine if the manja can easily cut through your finger while just flying the kite, what effect can the dough have which is used to coat the manja in the first place. After a hard day’s work, not being able to eat their dinners properly due to injured fingers is a professional hazard that these manja makers have to live with. And to think that this is a temporary or a seasonal hazard is not true, because for most of these manja makers this is their only profession. Once back to their native places after catering to the seasonal yet more lucrative kite flying scene in Gujarat, most of them continue with this work as this is their permanent vocation and only source of livelihood. Barelie, Agra and Lucknow happen to be the hub of manja making business in India.       

Some of these manja makers have been coming to Gujarat now for two decades or more. Some of them have grown up holding the lethal dough in their hands. Munnibai is one such manja maker. She hails from Lucknow district of UP and has been coming to Ahmedabad every kite-flying season for more than 25 years now. She is a widow and her husband was a manja maker himself. In fact he died (of natural reasons) during one of such seasonal visits to Ahmedabad some 15 years back. Munnibai now comes with her entourage consisting of her sons, son-in-law and a few contracted workers. She herself doesn’t coat the thread, but manages the entire show.

“I have been coming here for more than 25 years now”, says Munnibai. And what has changed over the years? “It has become less profitable proposition now” she claims. “There was a time when we used to come here much before Diwali, there was a lot of work. Besides, the contractual labor has become dearer, while the coating charges have not increased proportionately. The cost of raw material has also gone up.” Munnibai has to look after everyone in her team. She takes a place to stay on rent each year for the period of stay and the rentals have also gone up drastically. That piece of information doesn’t come as a surprise to me; the real estate scene in Ahmedabad has been scorching hot of late. The manja makers cater to two sets of clientele – one is the shopkeepers and traders who give them bulk orders and later sell the ready-coated manja at their shops at much higher rates. The other is individual clients who get the raw thread of their choice and get it coated under their own supervision and customized to their own needs viz. some people ask for more glass-powder in the coating dough to make the manja extra sharp. Since shopkeepers give them bulk orders they also pay them less, while catering to individual clients is more profitable as the charges are higher. “Few years back a bulk of our business used to come by catering to the individual clients. These days people do not have time. They purchase the ready coated manja from shopkeepers instead of coming to us. So now most of our work comes from these traders, while the individual client business picks up only in last 10 days or so.” Besides all this, there are the usual problems of police harassment and other officials. “They (police) take manja from us for free. We have to oblige, how can we say no?”   

All said and done it’s business as usual for Munnibai and a lot like her as his sons and others relentlessly keep streaking the thread with the dough. They start at 7 in the morning and continue till 8 or 9 in the night. And as the d-day approaches (14^th January) and the business gets brisk, the manja making continues well past midnight. They start early again next morning and hardly manage a sleep of 4 or 5 hours.

But the bustling Ahmedabad traffic at Raipur circle fails to take notice of this slogging, except for an indifferent glance when it is made to wait for the lights to turn green. Which makes me ponder - what happens if the manja makers decide to take a break next year and do not turn up? And what happens if our earth skips its mandatory encircling of the sun and the air fails to bring the nip post Diwali next time around? Unlikely, both of them. I can bet my horse!