The scorching rays of the sun beat down on a quiet afternoon, as everyone settles down for a siesta. Suddenly, a piercing cry - "Dhaariwala" rents the air. Meet Dilip Sitaram Kamble, the 18-year-old owner of a mobile, manual grinding stone to sharpen knives and agricultural implements. A welcome visitor for harried housewives tired of cutting vegetables with blunt knives. In a few minutes, they come down from surrounding buildings laden with scissors, knives and wooden-handled scythes.But even this greeting does not please Kamble, these days. The numbers have dwindled and gone are the times when he was so busy with work that he was literally enveloped in a sea of knives just waiting for his grinding stone. Kamble is just one of a fast-fading breed of "chakku churiwallas" who could be spotted on the streets of Mumbai come rain or shine. A far cry from their heydays in the'70s when even Jaya Bachchan paid tribute to their importance with the song "Chakku, churiyan tez karalo." in thefilm Zanjeer.Though these dhaariwalas never really sang and danced, Kamble feels that perhaps they ought to - gimmicks like that might be the only way to save a profession that might not make it to the end of the millennium. What is ironic is that business dwindling is only a sign of the times. With modern living and sophisticated technology people no longer need to own unwieldy, hard-to-maintain implements. Most knives today are made of high-quality steel and no amount of chopping and changing can blunt their edges. And even if that happens, tiny gadgets - no bigger than a bottle opener - can sharpen a knife in seconds.For those without access to these handy implements, the search for a dhaariwala proves to be a self-defeating exercise. Now, whenever you need a knife-sharpener, it is easier to buy a new knife than wait for the man with a grinding stone. "To assure a steady flow of customers you have to keep the shop open on all days but we cannot afford to do that," saysMohammed Irfan Mohammed. His fingers - swollen and cracked - bear testimony to his entry to the business at a young age. "You can end up slicing your fingers however careful you might be," he adds. Which is why the 33 -year-old is not willing to let family business pass down one more generation. Today, neither of his children will follow in their father's footsteps.Sixty-five year-old Harishchandra, another dhaariwala, thinks the way Mohammed does. In the business for 45 years, he remembers a time when they used to charge just two paise per instrument - and were more than comfortable. Now, even though prices that gone up more than a 100 times - they charge between Rs eight to Rs 10 per instrument - the hike in coal prices has made the business unviable. On a good day, the maximum a knife sharpener can earn is between Rs 40 to Rs 50 - not enough to run a small shop or stall, like Mohammed and Harishchandra are struggling to.The fact that more and more co-operative housing societies have bannedthe entry of hawkers has also been a blow these dhaariwalas have not been able to recover from. There are loyal customers like housewife Suhas Chowdhari who goes once every few months with her kitchen implements. Says she, "You know you can rely on them. They will always be there, unlike other hawkers." Little does she know how far removed from reality she is. Soon, the only sign of these dhaariwalas will be a song from an old Hindi film. Fading to oblivion as the last note is played.
