A profession gets back its shine

“ Bhande kalai kara lo (get your utensils re-tinned)” was one call that drew us children to a flat muddy patch near a pagdandi (path in the hills) leading to our residential colony in Shimla. We knew that this kalaiwala (re-tinning vendor) would be digging a pit there and setting up a furnace.

Soon, women from the colony would rush there with their copper or brass utensils for re-tinning, a process that we loved to watch.

One by one the kalaiwala would place the vessels facing down on the fire, after sprinkling a powder (later we came to know it was sal amoniac or ammonium chloride) on them, and we would see sparks flying in the air.

He would then scratch the inside of the utensil and rub it with a cloth and, lo behold! in a matter of seconds they would glimmer like silver.

For us this was indeed magical. He would then dip the utensil in a bucket of water, and his job was done. Long after he had gone, it was time for us to collect this tiny pearl-like silvery stuff from the soil.

As we grew older, the visits by the kalaiwala grew fewer and fewer with every passing year. Then they stopped altogether. This is because the markets by then were flooded with cookers and steel vessels, and people had almost stopped using copper and brass utensils.

Generations of Allaudin Kalaiwala’s family in Meerut were in the re-tinning profession, but they were gradually hit hard like all other kalaiwala s. There were no longer any takers for their ‘art’. Hardly anyone came to their 150-year-old kalai shop at Ghanta Ghar.

Finally, they got a break in 1988, when Allaudin came to know that big hotels in Delhi had started using brass utensils for cooking and there was a demand again for kalaiwala s.

So the family chose to shift to the Capital for a living. And, luckily, they have not looked back since.

“We are not only called by hotels like Maurya, Taj, Vasant Continental, Shangri La and Eros to name just a few, but we also travel on demand to other cities including Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Kolkata for kalai assignments from hotels,” says Allaudin.

His enterprising son, Mohammed Rahis, has formed a small company called RRT Kalai and Buffing Works. The workforce comprises the extended family. “We are over a dozen of us, and for every assignment, especially in a five-star hotel, six or seven of us work from morning till evening,” Rahis says. The payments are based on the work. The person who applies kalai gets ₹1,200-1,500 a day.

“While urban-dwellers are now aware of the benefits of using copper and brass vessels, people in small towns do not care and do not want to spend on re-tinning,” Rahis says.

The charges vary according to the size of the utensil. “While the cost of the kalai goes up and down like silver and gold — one day it may be ₹1,600 for every kg and another day ₹2,800 — our earnings are steady at 25-30 paisa for every rupee spent.”

What is encouraging, however, is that over the last two years the demand for re-tinning has been increasing.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi

COMMENT NOW