The Lost Generation (Chronicling India's Dying Professions)

Language: English
Pages: 272 (14 Color Illustrations)

A Note on the Author
A young journalist based out of Calcutta, Nidhi Dugar Kundalia is an MA from City University, London. She has written extensively on society, subcultures and cultural oddities in

newspapers like The Hindu, the Times of India and magazines like Kindle Magazine and Open. This is her first book.
Introduction
I first saw him in Tiretti Bazaar in the early hours of the morning, when it is still possible to walk and observe the activities before crowds throng Calcuttas old quarters. Tea-stall

owners juggling streams of tea between glasses; a street barber sharpening his razors against a stone; a beedi maker drying his tendu leaves on the cobbled sidewalks. He sat

between them, our bhisti wallahthe water carrierbefore the corporation taps, suspended between old and modern, waiting to fill his animal-skin bags with water. His ancestors,

though, would fill their water from the banks of the Ganga and freshwater springs, serving Mughal troops in war fields, the Nawabs of Bengal and then the British. The bhisti

wallahs were crucial machinery in ordinary peoples everyday lives toowatering the gardens of zamindars, filling pots of water for the nautch girls, offering cool water to

worshippers at mosques on the days of Jumah (the Friday prayer) and filling cups for weary travellers and thirsty lepers. As the century turned, however they quickly devolved

into mere spare parts, only delivering mashqs to those whom the government pipelines had failed to reach. Like the old, abandoned palatial homes of the noblemen dotting this

congested marker, this solitary bhisti wallah is a testament to significant events and feats of importance from decades ago, but like their deepening cracks and crumbling walls, he is

also a stark reminder that, one day,