Meeting the Producers (5)

 Shri Haji Valimamad Suleman (known as Haji Kaka) resides in Zura village. Belonging to Sindh (Pakistan), his family migrates to Kutch in Gujarat generations ago.  Originally, Haji Kaka family was Hindu Rajput later converted to Islam.  Haji Kaka believes that the Garasiya Maldhari (animal herders) invited his ancestors to the village of Zura, insuring them that they would benefit of all facilities. Nowadays, the Lohar community is around 30 members, most of them are manufacturing bells, while some other are making agricultural tools and equipments. Haji Kaka lives with 10 family members, 5 of them are involved in bells making with him which is the major source of income. Haji Kaka taught his skill to his son, daughter-in-law, daughter and son-in-law along with his grandson Suleman.  He has extended this craft training to more than 30 artisans who run now their own workshop successfully. 

The task of mashing the local clay and mixing cotton into is performed by the women of the family. They shape the bell using with the copper brass powder (known as “Takkankhar” locally) before it goes in the kiln for firing. This process requires high degree of precision and final quality depends on this process.

Haji Kaka is a senior copper bell artisan. He became famous for his ability in providing voice tones to the copper bells. The copper bell artisans are making tones on the demand of Maldharis (animal herders) who need different tones of bell, helping them to locate their cow or buffalo herds grazing in outskirts of the village. Before, many artisans were skilled enough to supply this particular kind of bells, nowadays, only Haji Kaka and two other artisans have this ability. 

But since the demand of bells from Maldharis decreased, Haji Kaka and other artisans had to change significantly the usage of their crafts, converting the bells into wind chimes, musical instruments such the saragema, door bells, etc.  Haji Kaka is fond of music. He plays ‘Morchang’ (a local musical instrument) during the leisure times.

Haji Kaka has been awarded with a Merit Award from the President of India in 2005 and the prestigious Kamaladevi award presented by the Craft Council of India (CII) in 2007.

Photos by Pallon Daruwalla & Subrata Pandey