THE tiny office room in one of the dingiest parts of India's brass capital Moradabad, 175 km from Delhi, is stuffy, the claustrophobia heightened by the high-pitched whine of the buffing machine in the corner. But all discomfort melts away as 70-year-old Ata-ur-Rehman, sitting upright on a narrow straight-backed chair, strokes his flowing silver beard and weaves a fascinating tale that has its genesis in the year 1917.
That was when his father started the Rehman family brass business, crafting puja items for the then remote regions of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. There's a twinkle in his eyes as he says: "From exporting to eastern India, we've graduated to exporting to the US, Middle-east, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Holland, Italy, Belgium, France and Spain. And it was a humble typewriter that started it all."
Brass puja items and a typewriter. Intriguing connection. But Rehman continues,waving aside any interruption. In 1947 the family lost a lot of business. All they were left with was a typewriter, a strong box and some money. "We started writing letters on the typewriter to buyers. The first large order came from Kuwait and after the cultural revolution in China, American buyers looked towards Hindustan." Puja items? He begins to lose patience. "You'd be surprised at what we export and what the demand is. Apart from the usual Moradabadi brass vases, candle-stands, ashtrays and photoframes, the demand today is for unusual items—mainly reproductions of antique products originally made in the UK and Europe. Sometimes we do about Rs 10 crore of business a year."
Rehman's words open up a Pandora's box. Of a niche industry picking up faster than you can say "antique, my foot". The manufacturers: nimble-fingered craftsmen, wielding a mastery over an art form handed down to them through the generations.
You have to stoop to enter Sabir Mian's haveli through a low-slung wooden door at the end of a labyrinthine lane in the Daryaganj area of Old Delhi. No natural light enters this tiny 10x10 ft room. A single naked bulb swinging from the ceiling casts strange shadows, the light scattering as it bounces off rows of golden megaphone-like objects stacked one on top of the other. It's the workshop of the largest manufacturer of replicas of antique gramophones in the country.
Sabir Mian's initiation into the business, like Rahman's, began in 1947. "We were originally manufacturers of items like surmadaanis, rose-water sprinklers and other ornamental items." The Partition upheaval brought a break in the business and about 10 years later Sabir Mian's father went into the fake antiques business. "Earlier, HMV used to sell the gramophones for Rs 200-250. When they became obsolete, we began to assemble fakes," he explains. And once they are put together it's difficult for the lay person to spot a fake from a real.
The replicas are perfect, down to the last detail of the HMV logo. The horns are gleaming brass, the base dark varnished wood—the HMV trademark. "The voice boxes are manufactured in Mumbai where the original demand for replicas began—at the Chor Bazaar. The rest of the parts are made by individual craftsmen in Daryaganj and here I just assemble them," says Sabir, uncrowned king of the trade. Assembling takes about 5-6 hours and prices for the local exporter vary from Rs 1,500-2,000. Says F.Rahman, a Roorkee-based exporter: "We sell it to the overseas buyer for about Rs 5,000 and over-the-counter prices abroad can be anything around Rs 50,000. "
AND they're not just dummies which add a touch of antiquity to a corner of the living room. Sabir demonstrates by playing an old Suraiya 78 rpm record, which takes off at a high screech, steadies for a few seconds and then slides slowly down the road to a groaning death, saved in the nick of time by a worker who jumps up and winds it up again with great gusto. "I don't do any orders for the domestic market," explains Sabir, "there is not much demand here." But he's very cagey about revealing specific figures regarding volume of trade and turnover. He relents after much persuasion, looks away, drops his voice low and reveals that he exports about 60,000-one lakh pieces a year to Germany, Saudi Arabia, England among other places.
However, exporter Saleha Singh, of the Delhi-based firm Budget Link India, says Sabir's figures are much higher for she's not his only buyer. And that his turnover in a good year can run into much more than a crore. Not surprising because gramophones are not his only bread and butter. He also deals in reproductions of classic grandfather clocks which chime on the hour and go for about Rs 2,000-3,000 apiece; replicas of old brass telephone instruments priced at Rs 1,000 and antique watches (pocket and table) which go for upwards of Rs 350.
Down the barely 3 ft-wide lane is another tiny hovel of a workshop owned by Mohammad Anis. Four die machines stand shoulder-to-shoulder, sheets of beaten brass propped up against walls which haven't had a brush with paint in years. His business, though not quite in the same category as Sabir Mian's, is an attention-grabber, for startling reasons. Paramjit Singh, partner in Budget Link, tells you why. Apparently, the bulk of Christmas decorations on sale in the US, UK and Europe are sourced from India! "And Mohammad Bhai is the biggest manufacturer in Delhi of these brass decorations for export," he says.
The import of Singh's words doesn't obviously sink in, for Mohammad is unaware of exactly where his products are shipped. For him, Christmas decorations are just an extension of the traditional family karigari in silver. "I know my products are supplied by buyers during Christmas to departmental stores in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Goa, Chennai and Calcutta," he says. "Beyond that I only know they go to vilait." He has a product range of 40-50 designs comprising stars, bugles, christmas trees, Santa Claus, reindeers and other decorative items popular during Yuletide in the West. "My orders run into 3-4 lakh pieces a year with prices ranging from Rs 8 to Rs 55. Weight determines the price."
Brothers Tanvir-ur-Rahman and Taufiq-ur Rahman, owners of one of the largest export houses, Jansons and Co., in Moradabad, provide a fair idea of the reach of these products. Apart from the trademark Moradabadi brass items, the brothers deal in bulk in Christmas decorations. Says Taufiq: "We supply to western Europe, the US, UK, Australia, Guatemala, Brazil, Thailand, Korea and Singapore, adding up to more than Rs 5 crore of business."
But while Christmas decorations have a timeless quality, never going out of fashion, the Rahman brothers have tuned in very fast to the latest craze sweeping the international circuit—fake antiques. Hence they also deal in products like replicas of antique brass coal bins for the fireplace complete with poker and shovel; classic silver-plated champagne buckets and wine racks; brass-handled walking sticks and hat-stands; old lanterns and lamps; mantelpiece and, cuckoo clocks; miners' helmets; and most interesting of all, quaint English tea, coffee and sugar containers.
BUT the piece de resistance of this flourishing trade in antique reproductions is manufactured in Roorkee, 170 km from Delhi. A legacy from the days drawing and survey instruments were manufactured for the Thomson College of Engineering, later Roorkee University, the export market is only about half-a-decade old. A small community of 20-25 craftsmen work the year round to meet the demand for replicas of antique nautical instruments.
"In Roorkee it's like a cottage industry with more and more families pitching in to make assorted parts which are then assembled," says manufacturer Dilshad Anwar Ansari, an early entrant to the market. According to Dilshad, whose family owns smaller ones and claim ignorance as to where their products are exported.
The only option is to ask exporter F. Rahman of Precision Industries, and what the Roorkee University graduate has to say stuns you. From humble beginnings in '92, the market has grown to about Rs 16 crore. His buyers are in the US and the coastal areas, ports and port towns in Belgium, Spain, the UK and South Africa. Offhand he can recall only Harrods in London which stocks his supplies but pulls out a catalogue of Nauticalia, the largest firm in the UK dealing in reproductions of antique marine products all over Europe. Some of Rahman's products from Roorkee are listed and the prices are mindboggling, matching his assertion that over-the-counter prices at outlets abroad notch up profits to the tune of 900 per cent.
An excerpt from the catalogue's description of the Brunton Compass, for example, reads: "...invented in the 19th century it was in use in every country from Australia to Alaska to survey the world's contours and coastlines...Nauticalia's replica is a remarkable instrument. Price £95 (Rs 6,270)." Rah-man smiles and says: "I buy it for Rs 125 from the karigar, sell it for Rs 400 and you can see for yourself what their price is." Similarly, a pocket sextant recreated, bought and sold for Rs 300 and 600 respectively fetches £99. Another quaint item supplied by Rahman and listed in the catalogue is a range of ship wheels in wood and brass, the write-up urging you to "fantasise that you are the master of a great clipper braving the Roaring Forties". Available in sizes between 16 and 72 inches, Rahman buys them for Rs 250, sells for Rs 400 and their prices range from £49 to £995.
Rahman takes pride in being the first exporter of nautical items to have travelled abroad attending fairs and surveying the market. According to him, "people are crazy there about these items." He cites an example of this mania from the last time he was in the UK to attend the Birmingham Fair. Stuff hardly worth Rs 15,000 was still lying with him which he passed onto a London auction house. He looks you straight in the eye and says: "In one day I got back Rs 6.5 lakh after paying off the auctioneers' commissions. That's how crazy it is."
As more models come into the country for replication, the market can only grow. Hotel chains are dabbling in marine reproductions for decor as are both Bollywood and Hollywood films. "Do you remember Jackie Shroff's desk in Agnisaakshi? The compass and antique telephone were my products,"says Dilshad. At the moment, the only competition is from Korea, but their products are in plastic, made from dies rather than casting which is the norm here.
Whatever be the amount of money and business floating around, what comes to the fore is the skill involved. From gramophones and grandfather clocks to compasses and ships' wheels, the secret of success lies in perfect replication. With raw material and labour costs still low compared to the developed world and quality of craftsmanship high, buyers the world over will continue flocking to the country armed with new ideas. And each year may well see the birth of yet another new product culled from the days of yore.
