Bhishtis of Old Delhi: Age-old profession faces slow death

Describing how the bag is filled, he said, “Once the mashaq is filled, we hold it in the right hand and hoist it up over the left shoulder blade. This position helps us tilt the mashaq and release water when needed.”

“One learns on the job… I have seen my father and grandfather do this for years. My uncles and father may be old but they can easily carry a mashaq because they are used to the work,” Rashid says.

Rashid delivers water to restaurants, tea stalls and homes tucked away in narrow winding gullies within a 1 km radius. However, he says the money is too little. A mashaq full of water, with a capacity of 30 litres, fetches him around Rs 15 to Rs 20.

His family is the only known family of bhishtis still in the profession in Delhi. With tap-water connections, water tankers, and water purifiers flooding homes, he and his family have seen their profession gradually slip into irrelevance.

Now, Rashid’s family, stares at yet another threat. The crackdown on slaughter houses in UP has forced factories treating and stitching mashaqs into shutting down overnight. The shortage in UP has sent prices of water skins soaring by Rs 500 in Punjab, where Rashid buys skins every three to four months. With the price of a large 50-litre skin touching Rs 4,500 in UP, Rashid hopes Punjab does not follow suit.

Liaquat Ali, a carpenter, meanwhile, talks about how the community got its name.

“During the battle of Karbala, a water-carrier galloping towards injured and dying warriors of Hussain, Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, was attacked and his waterskin punctured by arrows. The community, thus, derives its name from the Persian word bhisht or paradise,” he says.

Rashid’s family plays the traditional role of the Bhisht as well, serving water for free off small katoras to the pious and the needy every Friday after the afternoon prayers at the Jama Masjid.

“A mashaq-wala had ruled over Hindustan for a day,” Rashid chirps in, referring to Humayun’s reward to Nizam Saqqa, a water carrier and the only Bhisti ruler of Hindustan, who saved him from drowning in the Yamuna when he was fleeing Sher Shah Suri. Rashid’s profession also gave Rudyard Kipling his poem Gunga Din, “the regimental bhisti” so indispensable to the British army in India.