Chariot-maker returns

Though the mud chariots are not visible, its maker narrates a fascinating slice of the past

February 01, 2015 04:47 pm | Updated 04:47 pm IST

The toy chariot-maker one used to see in Brahmin Gali in the 1950s was spotted again after all these years. He was a slim boy then with a shaved head and chutiya living with his parents but now was a shrivelled-up old man with grey hair and an unkempt beard. Shambu of yesteryear has stopped making chariots. Having become a grandfather, he stays home most of the time looking after his son’s children, whose father is a municipal school teacher and wife a nurse in a general practitioner's clinic. The old house he lived in has been rebuilt by the new owner and he and his family occupy a barsati near Mori Gate.

Talking about times past, Shambu Dixit said that it was his grandfather who had started making toy chariots. Now that he had crossed 80, he guessed that Chandu Dada must have been born around 1888 and took to the craft after watching chariots being taken out during the Ramlila from Dauji-ka-Mandir in Esplanade Road that leads to Chandni Chowk, bang opposite the erstwhile Fort View Hotel. The hotel was so named as it gave a grand view of the Red Fort and was one of the best in those days, with a newly-opened cinema hall below. When the Grand Durbar of 1911 took place, Chandu Dadu saw the chariots transporting members of the royal party and remodelled his ones to make them look slicker, with a turbaned rider who looked more like a raja than a charioteer. Shambu’s father learnt the art from him and passed it on to Shambu after he had passed Middle School from Anglo-Sanskrit School in Daryaganj. He tried to become a clerk but did not succeed after which he fell sick and was diagnosed with tuberculosis. It took him long to recover with Unani treatment at the Hindustani Dawakhana in Ballimaran, though once he thought he was going to die. It was as much due to the medicines given by the hakim sahib as the prayers of his devout mother that had saved him was his fervent belief. Every morning his mother used to go and worship at the Sitla Mata Mandir and sometimes took him along too if he was fit and pour water from the nearby Shiv ling on his head, making him drink some of it also.

When his parents became old and sick he nursed them, besides making three chariots every day and selling them in Nai Sarak for Rs.2 each, which was a satisfactory amount those days. Along with his father’s savings he was able to make ends meet. Besides, his mother would make papad and badian from moong ki dal and sell the stuff to neighbours and those living in the nearby galis . After many a hardship he was able to get married to a girl who also belonged to a poor Brahmin family. She had passed her Matric examination and got a job as a teacher in a patthshala . But encouraged by him she became a trained nurse and, after that things changed for the better for the family. Meanwhile his parents died and Shambu and his wife had two children, a son and a daughter, who filled up the vacuum in their lives.

That was all a rambling account of family history but one was more interested in knowing about how he made the chariots. Shambu thought for a while and then related the nitty-gritty of the toy trade. In the morning he used to go to the roof of his house and collect the mud that he had moulded like dough the previous day and left to dry. Close by was a flower pot with the tulsi plant in it, which he watered before his mother came to pray and sing before it like Nutan sang later in the film Main Tulsi Tere Angan Ki . His belief was that because of the blessing of the tulsi his fingers became so dexterous that he could make not one but three chariots a day. The clay was moulded to make horses which also had to be put on the terrace to dry, after that he made the wheels and finally the chariots decorated with coloured cloth. The completed chariot was indeed a work of art which surpassed even his father’s and grandfather’s creations. To bear out his claim one remembers that the horses looked so real that one felt like buying a chariot but couldn’t because the pocket money was only four annas and two rupees seemed a big amount.

Had Shambu been making toy chariots now, he would have earned not two but 200 rupees for each which would have made his daily earnings gross Rs.600. But despite this he thinks his days as chariot maker are long over as he cannot put in that much of hard labour. But the old tulsi plant is still there in his barsati which he waters every day before praying, for like C.A. Kincaid’s masterpiece this tulsi plant also tells Shambu’s tale of old.

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