The same drill is repeated almost every day. From his cramped, dingy one-room shelter in a slum in Sewri, on the eastern creek of Mumbai, Gangappa rushes to the nearest suburban train station each morning.
Competing with rush-hour traffic, he then jostles his way into one of the packed coaches, eventually de-boarding at the magnificent Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus, roughly 10 km away, and marking his entry into the bustling south Mumbai business hub.
A small leather bag storing his simple tools — cotton, ear pick, and tiny bottles of hydrogen composition and coconut oil — is slung across his neck. His red turban, a bit faded, spells out his identity.
From the station, Gangappa then proceeds towards Nariman Point, at the southernmost tip of the city, where after some inspection, he settles down at a sheltered sidewalk opposite a park.
After a hurried start to the morning, from then on it is a matter of patience, a quality Gangappa has acquired over the past four decades. Barring timely tea and meal breaks, for the rest of the day, till sunlight fades, Gangappa will be rooted to the vicinity of his location — waiting, walking around, looking intently at every passerby, hunting for ears.
Mumbai, the largest city in India, is known to accommodate all kinds of major and minor professions — even those that have little relevance today. Like traditional ear cleaning. And its patrons such as Gangappa, who earns his bread by scraping out dirt from people’s ears, who are keeping this fading skill alive in India’s mega city.
A good section of ear cleaners in Mumbai are migrants who travelled to the city years ago from parts of the erstwhile land of the Nizam — today districts of Telangana (and adjoining districts of Karnataka) and Andhra Pradesh. Gangappa comes from a remote village in Raichur in Karnataka, bordering Telangana. Like most ear-cleaners, he inherited the skills of the trade.
The ear cleaners’ vibrant turbans, the mark of their trade, draw a lot of stares but little business. Most people are apprehensive of get getting their ears poked with untested equipment. And with the advent of cotton-swabs and ear picks, the traditional art of ear-cleaning has become obsolete. In fact, Gangappa and his contemporaries may be the last of the fading breed.
On an average day, Gangappa earns roughly anything between Rs. 200-Rs. 300. It’s a good day at work if he can manage 20 customers a day-but that’s spread over 8-9 long hours. A lot of waiting, as customers are few and far in between. A few regular customers, mostly middle-aged office going men, keep his business running, he says. “The new generation hardly comes to us. At least not regularly. They prefer to look,” says Gangappa.
For the hours put in, the uncertainty and gruelling wait ear cleaners endure, they earn a pittance. But despite that, why do these men still continue with their traditional trades? There is little opportunity for them to shift elsewhere, they say. “I don’t know any other work, so I never thought of shifting to any other job,” says Abdullah (58), who has been cleaning ears since the 1970s. Back then, he feels, he had little more relevance.
Abdullah who is from the drought-hit Mehboobnagar district of Telangana, has too little land back home to sustain his family. Many of these ear cleaners come from the cotton growing areas. But the returns have not been satisfactory owing to several factors. This compels them to stay on and make the most of each extra penny in Mumbai while their family continues with whatever of the farming.
Most ear cleaners say they have kept away their children from this trade. “There is no honour in this trade. We can’t do it back home. Mumbai cares little for our identity, our how much land we own. We get paid for our services. I wouldn’t want the same struggle for my children though,” says Mahadev, from Hyderabad.
Mahadev arrived in Mumbai in his youth, and in an attempt to break away from the pack also tried his hand at as a painter before shifting to the high-risk construction work. However, the hazardous life was too much for his ill health and he reverted to the trade his fathers had taught him. But he conceals his profession from his native for matters of ‘shame.’ “I send money to my wife and four children. But it is today shameful to tell people in my village about the kind of work I do. Times have changed,” he says.
Mahadev, a Valmiki by caste, has three sons and two daughters, all of whom have got married, and are engaged in some service work.
Mumbai’s unrelenting monsoons disrupt business for weeks forcing the ear-cleaners to scurry for cover. Dismayed, some run off to their natives till the Monsoons subside. Others stay on, managing to function by making the best use of the concrete structures for cover. The question though is for how long?
