Kalikhabar, the hub of ‘Chadar’ making unit

Bahadurpura: Photos of politicians, celebrities and who’s who of the society regularly appear in the media presenting chadar at a famous shrine in some or the other city, but very few people know that Old City’s Hassan Ali Zari work shop is hub of this chadar producing unit. Prominent shrines across the country and also some well-known shrines in Iraq receive these cloths presented as an offering to mark their devotion to divinity.

Each year, the Hassan Ali’s Zari workshop receives scores of orders for renowned shrine of Khaja Ghareeb Nawaz located in Ajmer in Rajasthan from different quarters who mostly present chadar as a mark of devotion particularly during the annual Urs celebrations.

Besides this, the shrines of saints including Ghouse E Azam Dastageer (Baghdad-Iraq) since 18 years, Tajuddin Baba (Nagpur) since 20 years, Haji Ali Dargah (Mumbai) since 13 years, Ameenpeer Dargah (Kadapa) since 13 years, Syedna Miskeen Shah Auliya (Madhya Pradesh), Hassan Khatib Chisty Shah Baba (Gujarat) since 13 years, Khaja Banda Nawaz (Gulbarga- Karnataka), Syedna Baba Shrafuddin Shorwardi (Pahadishareef- Hyd), Dargah Yousufain (Nampally-Hyd), Shah Khamoosh Qibla (Nampally- Hyd) receive chadars made from this famous workshop. “For more than four decades we have been recognised as an expert in this segment and have been awarded continuously. We won many awards, medals and also got Certificates from USA,” said Md Azeem Ali, one of the owners of the Hassan Ali Zari workshop.

Azeem recalled that this work was started more than 70 years back by his grandfather and the 3rd generation grasped this work and he has been working since 35 years. Most of the times the order of yearly Urs comes from caretakers (Mutawalli) of the Dargahs, while some times State heads and VIPs also place an order. After Telangana was formed, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and CM’s of some other States, besides celebrities like A R Rahman ordered Chadars.

A chadar is made up with a pure velvet, zari thread, zari taar (with plastic thread) and other decorative material. The process involves, making blue print of the design on velvet cloth and by the thread in zardozi needle is stitched with a zari dori over the printed design. For making it more attractive chamki and beads are stitched for looking more attractive. “In every chadar the Allah & Mohammed (peace be upon him), Bismillah, four names of Khalifa, five names of Panjetan, name of the Dargah are in scripted, besides outlining it with lining work. This work is fully done by hand zari work which is called as zari kalot ka kaam, which takes nearly more than 4 months with 12 workers to complete one chadar,” Azeem explained.

A chadar which was specially made for Dargah of Ajmer was of 21 x 12 ft in size with all the important inscriptions on it. The chadar of Saint Shah Khamoosh (Nampally- Hyd) is made up of 5 to 6 kgs of pure silver (Chandi). “Everything in this is made up of chandi like thread, chamki, silver zari work etc, the chadar for the shrine of Saint Khaja Banda Nawaz (Gulbarga- Karnataka) is 30 x 18 ft in size, and a chadar of Ghouse E Azam Dastageer (Baghdad-Iraq) is 42 meters in size. We manufacture more than 150 dargah chadar with different sizes, and also prepare the Mandap and Masnat (used in Marriages) and wall posters of religious importance,” added Azeem.

BY M M Farooqui