Wednesday, December 20, 2023

The Perfumeries of Kannauj

These are technological sensoriums. A small town in Uttar Pradesh, an hour and a half away from Kanpur is Kannauj, which is known as the perfume capital of India. Here, attar has been manufactured through the harvest of a range of flowers and other fragrant plants though natural process since more than a millennium. The histories of this trade are speculative. While the techniques have certainly been developed much before, it was perhaps during the period of Mughal queen Nurjahan that the apparatus of distilleries was perfected further. 

Sweet smelling petals or leaves of flowers or plants are introduced in large containers called degs and boiled with water. The degs have a thin long elbowed pipe made up of cane that pass the scented vapour into the bhapka - a receiver. The bhapka has a shallow layer of a base oil that soaks and settles the smell from the steam into itself, along with some essential extract. This extract contains some oil as well as water. While the water is let off, the essential oil remains to be used for application.

Each step of the process is detailed, and observed carefully. These assemblies are meticulous and need to be monitored with care. The pots, pipes, kilns, containers are measured to maintain their equation to the preserving scent as well as the operating body. As one enters the closed spaces of these perfume workshops, that once were in the open, each part feels phenomenologically animated. Most times, the building is shaped like a chimney - that contains the hearth in its belly, allowing the fumes to escape through its neck and mouth above. Almost a reverse wind tunnel, the perfumery space is mystified with light and air, smell and smoke. 

The essential oils collected - the ruh of the flowers as they say - are poured into bottles made up of camel leather - called kuppis. These allow the slow seepage of excess water that may lay trapped in the final extract over a long period of time while keeping in the oil. The leather - as one of the last kuppi-makers Mustaqueem bhai tells us - needs to be procured by putting to death living camel for only the pores of that skin shall remain open. A deceased camel's skin may not serve the purpose. The skin is tanned and eventually shaped over an earthen mould which is removed once the bottle hardens. The skin is optimised for making kuppis of different sizes - nothing goes waste. 

Speaking of waste, even the sludge of flower petals are kept for processing them into agarbattis, or incense sticks. These are kneaded with some amount of husk and clay and rolled into aroma sticks. Today these are available in different shapes, sizes and colours. Some other materials like saffron - that still have substantial smell - are passed on to sweet shops for further consumption. Some other left overs are used as fertilisers or compost, along with the ash of the firewood that fuels the deg-bhapkas. The excessive water is largely thrown away, or alternatively processed into flavoured waters for consumption or aroma diffusers. It is said that (and we also experienced) that the drains of Kannauj once smelled so fresh because all they primarily carried was rose water.  

Surrounded by large farms of flowers and scenting shrubs, Kannauj is quiet container that produces perfume for not only India, but the entire world. Needless to mention that the principal economy of the town is production of a variety of perfumes, and the sellers are largely producing stock to be exported to international markets. They are hardly interested in retail - most shops are traditional gaddi style where significant deals are struck every week. These perfumes travel to places like Paris and Dubai where they are studied and enlarged in their volumes. These are then recomposed with different compounds, and mixed with various "bases" (like oil, alcohol, spirit, etc.) and created into the modern bottled perfumes that we buy today. There's a big industry of people quietly creating seductive smells for us, and remain as invisible as fragrance lay dissolved in the air.






 


























Monday, November 27, 2023

Thane Kattey by Bhanvari Devi / Translation

Singer: Bhanvari Devi
Original Language: Marwari


साँवरियो घट माय रे, रमैयो घट माय (2)
In my heart is my beloved, as much as Lord Ram

थाने कठे, थाने कठे, थाने कठे, थाने कठे
Where are you, where do I find you?

थाने कठे ढूँढवा जाऊँ रे, साँवरियो घट माँ? ओ, जी, ओ
Where shall I go searching for you? O Dear that you are in my heart?


राम भी देख्या, लक्ष्मण देख्या, (2)
I have seen Ram, I have found Laxman,

देखी सीता माई रे, ए-जी, देखी सीता माय रे
I also saw Mother Sita,

साँवरियो घट माय रे
He is inside my heart

थाने कठे , थाने कठे , थाने कठे , थाने कठे
Where do I look for you? Where after all?

थाने कठे वाळवा जाऊँ रे, साँवरियो घट माँ? ओ, जी, ओ
Where do I dig you out from? From inside my heart!


ब्रिम्हा देख्या, विष्णु देख्या, (2)
I have seen Lord Brahma, I have seen Lord Vishnu,

देखी सरुसती माई रे, देखी सरुसती माई रे
I have also seen Goddess Saraswati

साँवरियो घट माय
You live inside my heart…

थाने कठे, थाने कठे , थाने कठे, थाने कठे
Where do I see you? Where?

थाने कठे वाळवा जाऊँ रे, साँवरियो घट माँ? ओ, जी, ओ
Where do I search you out from? My love is etched in my heart!



केरो देख्या, पाण्डु देख्या, (2)
I saw the Kauravas, I saw the Pandavas

देखी दरुपद माई रे, ए-जी, देखी दरुपद माई रे
I have visited Mother Draupadi

साँवरियो घट माय
My heart is filled with my beloved

थाने कठे, थाने कठे , थाने कठे, थाने कठे
Where do I see you though? How do I find you?

थाने कठे वाळवा जाऊँ रे, साँवरियो घट माँ? ओ, जी, ओ
Where do I search you out from? You stay in my heart...

Sunday, September 24, 2023

The Spectacle of Demolition





 

A Visit to Nagpur

What is it about smaller towns that relaxes the metropolitan mind? Over the last weekend tending to the Ganpati festival in Mumbai, I decided to visit Nagpur. The idea was to get out of the rut of this megacity to experience an alternative urban context, while meeting knowns in the city.

No rut of the locals, no taking buses, no waiting in queues, no tall building around, no over honking - perhaps these are things that make smaller towns easy for the megacity breed. The deintensification of everyday life - even to such a mid-extent - allows one to savour time through what is perceived as slowness. One feels like he/she is able to give more time to smaller acts - of getting up, having coffee, getting ready, having lunch...everything gets its space in life rather than becoming a chore. It is the un-routining that salvages the mind from feeling burnt out. 

Architecturally, one is navigating cozier, yet spaced out neighbourhoods, more greenery, less vehicular traffic on a general day and optimised commute in smaller cities. The outer limits of the city of Nagpur are just about 30-40 minutes apart, they say. (for inevitable comparison - Mumbai is also a linear city with a much larger area spread, with different parts connected disparately). Getting from point A to point B thus, does not involve too much planning since these are reachable within 15-20 minutes. Passing through low rise settlements establishes a new perspectival regime where the eye is able to see further, thereby increasing the scope of wandering too. 

This is not to say that Nagpur is not intense. There are parts of the city which are equally bustling and transforming. The drive for infrastructural upgradation is rampant across all cities, including Nagpur. Thus, getting a metro, a set of malls, tall residential and commercial establishments is their claim to modernity. Nagpur was also decking up for the G20 summit, and it being the land of Nitin Gadkari, infrastructure has to be the priority. Yet, in comparison to Pune, Nagpur seemed much more contained and slower. 

Nagpur is roughly the geographical centre of the country of India. This was established and built as a milestone by the British during the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1907. Today, one passes by the Zero Mile, or the (0,0) coordinate of India on ground in Nagpur as if it was a roadside urban infrastructure. We kept feeling that this spot did not get its architectural presence within the scheme of planning of Nagpur city. The NMC website informs us how "[t]he British Government made Nagpur the capital of the new state named Central Province in mid-19th century and it remained so till 1956, after which it became the second capital of Maharashtra. Thus Nagpur has enjoyed the status of being the administrative centre of Central India during the ancient and medieval eras." Nagpur was earlier a part of Madhya Pradesh, but culturally got subsumed into the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra eventually. 

The older part of the city is the Mahal area that was filled with Ganesh and Gauri idols for the upcoming festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. The variety of parapharnelia for rituals of worship are worth watching in the shops. As they come together, they make their beautiful patterns. Shops turn into mini museums, as cabinets of curiosities. It is therefore that we took a slow trail through the lane that sells these items. Saving ourselves of the rising temperatures, we also went to my friend's ancestral house, which wasn't much old, but displayed interesting pattern in which the house was cultured. 

Other than that, we went for the Pohe with tari for breakfast, visited the TDS for lunch, the Varhadi Vyanjan for a traditional Nagpuri dinner. We snacked at a Samosa place near Futula lake, shopped at Apna Bazaar for some clothes, walked past the market squares of Nagpur and came back home with still time in hand. This is not to say we were tired, but we could accomplish a lot in a day. 

Amongst things architectural, we walked along the Birdy (Burdee) area (which is a slipped version of Buldi of Sitaburdi), the Manormabai Mundle University Campus, saw the architecture college, spent time by the Futula Lake. Alongside the edge of the lake we observed new developments such as a mini stadium facing the lake and a large oversized complimentary parking lot building eating up into the green pastures off the lake. As we drove by the stadium, we realised how the stadium cut off the visual connection of people completely from the road. While the building in itself seemed very articulate and scaled - with the seating on the top facing the lake and the space below becoming the shop line on the road - it missed the essential urban gesture of how it ought to configure itself to preserve and privilege the existing urban relationships that people share with the lake. 

We savoured the shopping centres in the city of Nagpur. These shopping centres share a distinct relationship with the street wherein they submerge themselves just half floor below the ground creating equal proximity for two levels from the road (instead of one), thus doubling up the affordance for shopping visibility. Further, they create a soft, scaled interface with the street, and step back to create an external edge that is not stark and flat, but wraps people around the building. The upper levels are often reserved for offices or residences. This type, that became common during the '90s were fast taken over by malls within megacities like Mumbai. Today, we see that most malls lie defunct or passive, and run on their recreational spaces like food courts or cinema halls. The essential character of shopping remains merely a window. The older shopping centres seemed to be an economic and elegant response, which graciously survive in these cities. Many of these shopping centres are decked and facelifed in glass panels. They too, perhaps, loom through the risk of conversion - but architecturally they demonstrate a complex resolution of organised shopping.