Losing currency?

When was the last time a nadaswaram player came to your door in the city, playing your favourite tune? Does the knife sharpener still call out asking if your cutting tools need a doing over? Some of us have seen these purveyors of expertise sometime or the other, maybe even transacted business with them. The rickshaw-puller in Kolkata. The knife-sharpener from Arakkonam. The lakeside barber and ear-cleaner in Srinagar. The itinerant nadaswaram player. The parrot astrologer. The pavement tailor. The travelling acrobat. Job done, we've moved on. But Nidhi Dugar Kundalia has followed them home, so to speak, and shared what she saw and heard in a small book. Indeed, in the larger scheme of things, 11 professions may be a minuscule number in a country like India, especially for those with an interest in the subject. Still, The Lost Generation: Chronicling India's Dying Professions is unpretentious and, for the most part, nonjudgmental collation of interview-based writings that draws attention to livelihoods that are on the edge, and the world of insights they unravel.

The author explains that "while recording the interviews, I found myself being critical of the patriarchal, casteist, classist and sexist world-view seemingly espoused by these professions and the organised religion they practice", but the narrative mostly remains free of authorial comment. In hindsight, this gives the reader a more direct access to the different worldviews chronicled in the book.

While the introduction to the book starts off promisingly, it peters into a bit of a ramble and so it makes better sense to plunge directly into the narratives. The first chapter tells the story of godna (tattoo) artist, Dubru, from Jharkhand. It talks about little girls being subject to bloody, painful tattoos in order to protect their husbands "from Yamraj"; the girls will continue to be tattooed as they grow into women because the tattoos are considered to be their "assets". As a woman describes them: "The only things we take with us to the heavens". The chapter talks about how Nowri, the grandmother of the child whose godna ceremony is recorded in the book, makes it abundantly clear that she will have no truck with a man such as Dubru, a mere malhar, only for the godna:

The fact that the casteist sentiments or the excruciating unsanitary procedure did not elucidate any comments from the writer seemed jarring initially. Even the fact that during the ceremony, the women sang obscene songs to distract the child! Upon reflection, though, the restraint shown by the author is commendable. For one, the voices of the people are heard, unadulterated. For another, since the nuances of these issues are complicated, it is best to not impose a dominant value system to analyse them, even if there is room for debate on these practices.

Dubru's story draws attention to the fate of nomadic people such as himself and Anjalayya, the burrakatha storyteller of Telangana. Nidhi writes:

But it is curious that we don't get to know the name of the village in Khunti district, Jharkhand, where Nidhi met Dubru and Nowri. Nor is there a mention of the name of the village where the rudaalis of Rajasthan were interviewed; the only clue is that it is 23 kilometres from Jaisalmer and is one among "seven or eight regions still under the fierce control of the kith and kin of the Rajputs". This story about professional mourners, who are hired to cry during the mourning period of upper-caste people, is about how deeply entrenched patriarchy is in many parts of India. We are told there is no police station or school in the village; the nearest school is about 10 km away. "This nowhere place lies outside the larger economics of a country, and the presence of the state, if at all, is feeble and personified in the form of the thakur of the area".

"Women's brains are hardwired to feel loss and grief. They have a weak heart," the Thakur says, patting his chest under his kurta. "We don't allow the women in our families to make a sight of themselves outside our homes. High-caste women do not cry in front of commoners. Even if their husbands die, they need to preserve their dignity. These low-caste women…do the job for them."

He refuses to allow Nidhi to meet these women because they "have to preserve their lajja". Curiously, though, being rudaalis gives daoris some power because otherwise they would never be acknowledged as 'legitimate consorts'.

When the author finally manages to meet some rudaalis after a funeral performance, they offer their unique insights. There's a definite touch of irony when one of them, Feroja, says, "People die a lot less often, too, these days… They have started calling musicians these days, from Jaisalmer, for the mourning. I heard about it from a randi who came from the next village… They can never console people like us. You need to feel things in here."