Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | This Bihar weaver’s business is booming as demand for kafans rise, and he’s not a happy man -Jyoti Yadav

This Bihar weaver’s business is booming as demand for kafans rise, and he’s not a happy man -Jyoti Yadav

Share this article Share this article
published Published on May 29, 2021   modified Modified on May 31, 2021

-ThePrint.in

Jitendra Prasad, of Patwa Toli village in Bihar’s Gaya district, runs a loom from his three-storeyed house — he makes saffron shrouds, or kafans.

Gaya: Swathes of saffron shrouds have been left to dry on the terrace of 50-year-old Jitendra Prasad’s three-storeyed home at Patwa Toli town in Bihar’s Gaya district. The other congested floors house raw materials and nine powerloom machines required to manufacture the shrouds.  

Prasad reluctantly admits that business is booming. Not only are his nine powerlooms running 18 hours a day, he’s had to even rent more of the machines.

“I had to rent nine more looms in the last month as the demand for kafan has increased drastically. It is three times higher than my normal sales,” Prasad told ThePrint. “We’ve been overworked in the last month. Our labourers had fled due to fear of Covid in the beginning but now, we’ve had to call them back as the workload is too much.”

But this is no ordinary business — the saffron shrouds, called kafans in these parts, are used to cover bodies as part of funeral rites.

In the current Covid wave, the shrouds have now become a symbol of the devastation that the pandemic has wreaked in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, especially after photographs emerged of shallow mass graves, with bodies covered in kafans, along the banks of the Ganga.

If the kafans dotting the banks of the Ganga are evidence of the scale of the pandemic in these rural areas, the weavers of Patwa Toli provide further proof.

According to Prasad, he has sold over 40,000 kafans in the last month alone.

“On an average, we sell 25,000 kafans in summer months. Last year, due to the first lockdown, that dropped by 40 per cent during the first lockdown but things are different in the second wave,” Prasad said.  

According to Prasad, whose family has been weaving kafans for the last 20 years, 80 per cent of his product is sold in Bihar and the remaining 20 per cent is sent to West Bengal and Jharkhand.

Please click here to read more.


ThePrint.in. 29 May, 2021, https://theprint.in/india/this-bihar-weavers-business-is-booming-but-hes-not-a-happy-man/667544/


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close