Today a friend sent me a write-up on the links between Wajid Ali Shah and Calcutta, and the article spoke about how he settled in Mitiaburz, thus boosting the economy of the place. Among others, the area became a haven for tailors, who provided customised service to the fashion-conscious settlers who had moved in from Awadh in the 1850s. I suddenly remembered the darzi who used to come to our house in Calcutta when we were children in the late 60s (almost a 100 years later). Thin and frail looking, he smelt of, what I now realise, tobacco.
In our house, we got new clothes only for our birthdays and Diwali, and maybe some simple essentials every alternate year before going to our grandparents’ house in Tamil Nadu. However, my mother was the ‘go-to’ person for most service providers – she was the banker for the milkman who supplied fresh cow’s milk to the neighbourhood, while we ourselves went to the kiosk to buy the bottled milk, the shoulder to cry on for drivers who had their quarters on the ground floor below our house. The elderly vendor who sold steel vessels in exchange for old clothes was always assured of a cup of tea in our house. I suppose this is why even if the darzi visited the neighbours more often, he would also land up at our house.
Our neighbours were from a well to do business family, and as was the tradition then, they lived in a joint family with lots of children, so his visits were frequent there. He would come once a month with a package of garments he had stitched. My mother would once in a while give him some fabric pieces that she had kept away for us. While they chatted, and he had his tea, my sister and I would pore over his design books, We loved looking through these books full of very attractive ‘foreign’ people wearing beautiful clothes. After a lot of discussion between my mother and the darzi, and a lot of sketching, out would come his measuring tape. His visit the following month with our stitched clothes was also a prolonged one. He would insist that we try out each dress that he had stitched, and we were quite used to him walking around us, tugging at a sleeve or a shoulder while we stood still enjoying all the attention. As we grew a little older, and had lots of other distractions, trying out each dress for the darzi became a chore. However he insisted on seeing each frock worn. I am not sure when exactly he stopped frequenting our place. Most probably the visits became less frequent after our neighbours moved away. What I do recall is that we had to order some clothes from him and needed to get in touch with him. The mode of communication was a postcard, to an address of a relative that he had given us. I remember the laughter in our house as we wondered as the correct mode of address for him in the letter, as none of us knew his name. Finally the card went out ‘Pyare Darzi Ji’. I suppose the pyare darzi did arrive in response.
I have just realised that when we were children, this tailor was the only Muslim person who had ever stepped into our house and this article made me appreciate this wonderful connection between us, our pyare darzi and Wajid Ali Shah.
This is the link to the article.
