A Kashmiri Pandit Tailoring Shop At
Batyaar Alikadal Srinagar
(Phot..1911 . The tailor
master is at work with his Singer foot pedal sewing machine while a group
of pandits are seated on the shop front and busy in gossiping )
According to Walter Lawrence (
From “Valley of Kashmir “ published in 1895 ),
‘The vast majority of the pandits belong to the karkun class
and have usually made their livelihood in the employment of the state. But as state
employment became harder to obtain and the numbers of the pandits increased,
the brahmans of Kashmir sought other occupations. Briefly, it may be said
that a pandit may follow any trade or occupation except those of the cobbler,
potter, corn-friar, porter, boatman, carpenter, mason, or fruit-seller etc.
Pandits have been known to adopt the profession of acting
and music, and a pandit now in my employment was once a cavalry soldier in the
army of His Highness the Maharaja of Oodeypore ( Udaipur ). As time goes
on these intelligent and quick-witted people will no doubt take to new occupations.
But the present karkun pandit regards the pen as his natural
destiny, and though many have taken to agriculture and many more are looking to
land as a means of employment and subsistence, they would infinitely prefer to
spend their lives as clerks in some office. The pandits of the villages
consider it no degradation to follow the plough and to carry manure; but the
city pandit, who has not severed himself from the literary atmosphere of the
capital, is inclined to look down upon the brahman agriculturist, and though he
will take a wife from the villages he will not, if a man of any position, permit
his daughter to marry into a village family.
The future of the city pandits
is a matter of some anxiety. They have not the keen trading instinct of the
natives of the Punjab, and may neglect the chances of commerce which easier
communications with India should now offer. ’
From the above statement of Walter
Lawrence , it appears that pandits had no hesitation towards taking up tailoring
as a profession in 19th century .
I have also heard
that cinema Actor A K Hangal ( 1914-2012 ) , Born in a kashmiri
pandit family of Peshawar , started his early life as a tailor
; But then this kashmiri pandit family had migrated out from
Kashmir valley long back and as such was far away from the
mainstream and core Kashmiri pandit society .
For sure , Kashmiri pandits had some aversion towards
joining any business activity . A job that
required a pen in hand or meant writing work was generally sought
after by them .That is why no kashmiri pandit was an artisan
. By artisan I mean carpenter , tailor , mason , blacksmith, papier mache
artist , shawl embroider , carpet weaver , plumber etc
. During my childhood , I could see just
one mason , one carpenter and some drivers from
kashmiri pandit community.
Although many pandits
had Bakery ( Kaandhar vaan ) shops or worked as
professional cooks but for marriage within the core
kashmiri pandit society , these men could not get a match.
Accordingly , most of them had to get married to girls from nearby hilly areas
of Kishtawar , Bhaderwah and Ramban .
You can see from the above photograph clicked in 1911
that there were Kashmiri pandit tailoring shops in Srinagar city . I am
informed by elders that there was a problem for boys engaged in this business
when they had to look for a match to get married . Kashmiri pandit society
considered this business as something inferior and later shunned this
occupation altogether .
But then again ,Some time
around 1940 , Lamboodhar Nath Tikoo , An educated and enterprising kashmiri pandit
, belonging to an affluent and influential family, surprised his community
members when he opened a tailoring shop under the name and style of ‘ Navyug
Tailors‘ at Habba Kadal Srinagar. Pandit Kashyap Bandhu , a reformist leader
amongst Kashmiri pandits during those days, personally attended the
opening ceremony of this shop at Habba Kadal. To attract VIP and European
customers , the business location was immediately shifted to Amira kadal in
Srinagar city .
Son of an engineer who had
built BC Road during Maharaja's rule, Lamboodhar Nath went to Bombay to study
engineering but returned to valley after learning professional tailoring . He
would cater to VIP customers and was much in demand for stitching stylish
suits, coats and fashionable shirts.
Very soon, Navyug Tailors opened another
branch at Residency Road in Srinagar city. Pandit Triloki Nath Tikoo , a young
kashmiri pandit with modern outlook , joined his brother Lamboodhar Nath Tikoo
in this venture from day one . For Tikoo brothers , it was also a step towards
reforming the community and motivating youth for starting such like business
ventures that were traditionally shunned . Tikoo family was from Reshi Peer Mohalla
in downtown Srinagar .
Pandit Laxman Joo Tikoo ( father of Lamboodhar
Nath and Triloki Nath ), felt sad and disillusioned at the venture of his
sons . Lamboodhar Nath had to start an Urdu Newspaper ‘ Navyug ‘ simultaneously to protect his father from
recurring satires from relations and friends for this tailoring venture that
was looked down upon by orthodox
kashmiri pandit society during those days. Young Nand lal Wattal ( who later
joined as editor of Urdu newspaper Khidmat ) from Rainawari was brought in as editor
of this news paper . Tailoring business of Tikoo brothers was directly hit by
the second world war as most of their European clients had to move out of
kashmir . The tribal raid of 1947 dried up almost all the residual clientele of
Navyug Tailors .The Newspaper had
to be closed down for various reasons . ‘ Navyug Tailors’ also pulled down its
shutters permanently after sometime .
Some Muslim Boys, who worked as apprentices at these shops , became excellent tailor
masters and opened independent tailoring shops in Srinagar city .
Eminent scholar Dr
Shashi Shekhar Toshakhani informs me as under :
‘ Pandits have been
throughout taunted and stereotyped as people who despise all manual work
or business and prefer only to wield the pen , their objection to other
jobs being that they are ‘derogatory to their Brahmin identity.’ This, however,
is highly exaggerated . While pandits living in rural areas would cultivate
their own fields, tend their cows and attend to other farming jobs, many among
those living in urban areas had long discarded their objection to occupations
other than white collar jobs. Though belonging to an ‘intellectual class’,
there were many who would even go for work in the factories like the
silk-weaving factory of Srinagar, for instance, or take up jobs like that of a
plumber, electrician, mechanic, driver etc. besides work as shopkeepers or small
traders. Of course being brahmins they may still not "engage in polluting
activities such as barbering, removing and skinning dead animals, making shoes,
winnowing pans and drums, slaughtering goats and sheep as eminent sociologist Prof. T. N. Madan has pointed
out in his study of the pandits of Uttarsu-Umanagri. I knew a Kashmiri brahmin
who worked as a barber and had his shop at Fateh Kadal, Srinagar. He sported a
rather large tilak on his forehead, perhaps to attract Kashmiri pandit clients.
I have had several haircuts done at his shop when I was in my teens. ‘
Sometime upto 1975,
there was a tailoring shop at kraal Khod Habba Kadal run by one
Shamboo Nath ji under the name and style of Lakshmi Tailors . Pandit Shamboo Nath ji was himself an
expert tailor master who could stitch fashionable three piece suits .
( Avtar Mota )
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