The Hindu : Karnataka News : Doing the vanishing act

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Thursday, Jul 19, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Doing the vanishing act

Kshama Kumar

Bangalore: K. Ravikumar has a trade, but one that has few takers.

He mends umbrellas. With a satchel bulging with broken umbrellas slung low over his shoulder, he seems to leap out of an R.K. Narayan novel.

But he has been left far behind in a world aptly conjured in Chetan Bhagat’s “One Night at a Call Centre.”

“Nowadays no one wants to mend an umbrella these days, they just buy a new one,” he says. Our “use and throw” society has no place for the likes of him.

D. Senthil, a cobbler from Hoskote, who visits the city regularly echoes the same sentiment. He is clearly a master of many skills — dextrously repairing bags, jeans and an assortment of other items.

As he seats himself down and brings out his implements to begin work on a broken shoe, his customer tells him that Rs. 10 is “too much” for the job.

Senthil has also begun to carry cheap footwear with him, as that has more of a market than the service he renders, he says.

Indeed, the many tiny “cobbler’s kiosks” have now become shops that sell bags, footwear and books. “Sofa repair” shouts N. Lokanath as he walks past houses. His cries go largely ignored. Lokanath too is one among these practitioners of a vanishing skill. “If I earn Rs. 200 a month I am very lucky. My wife sells flowers in K R Market and we manage.”

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