Seasoned machines clog the space of a small room. Their owner is sitting in between. Dressed in a blue pathani suit and mustard green topi, Mehboob Ilahi is finishing his lunch (this encounter unfolded just before the start of the fasting month of Ramzan).
In his early 70s, his serene face with a long white beard now gazes out into the street at Gali Qasim Jan in Old Delhi’s Ballimaran.
In his early 70s, his serene face with a long white beard now gazes out into the street at Gali Qasim Jan in Old Delhi’s Ballimaran. Turning towards the equipment in his chamber, he says “These are karahi (embroidery) machines…each machine has more than 300 parts, and I make one of those parts.” He then points at a school stationary shop across the street: “My son’s business.” The frail figure smiles, shaking his head, and says in a low voice, “My son didn’t follow his father’s trade, the way I didn’t follow my father’s.”
Although this shop was founded by his ‘walid saheb’ (father) Rahman Ilahi back in 1950, Mehboob Ilahi explains that his father used to do embroidery in this same space, aided by a karahi machine. He, on the other hand, helps make that same machine. The venerable man dives into his eventful past. “All parents want their children to establish themselves after their own way of living, but I wanted to do something different.”
So, he went to “machine master” Ustad Hamid in adjacent Lal Kuan to help launch his new career. Absentmindedly fiddling with his mobile phone that is hanging around his neck, Mehboob observes that “every work has its utaar-chadhav (ups and downs)… I felt my father’s embroidery work was not giving as much earning as he deserved, so I chose an area that appeared to be more promising.”
Years later, this same approach was chosen by his son Muhammed Atesham , who opened his stationary shop 20 years ago. Coming over to give his father the post-lunch chai, Atesham talks of the greater viability of his business, “considering that there is more than one school in the area.”
Talking of his own two young children, he wonders “who knows what they will do… Maybe they will settle abroad.” That indeed would be a serious rapture in the story of this family, as they have been living in Ballimaran for around 300 years.
Nevertheless, this afternoon, the world seems sturdy as Mehboob Ilahi lies down for a siesta. “Change comes so slowly that we don’t realise when halaat starts to change,” he says, before dozing off.
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