Category: KIRRT

Our village is home to many Jathedars (leaders) of Damdami Taksal of Sikh faith. For generations, we have been engraving the traditional weapons; we are the fourth generation. Being artisans, our forefathers could make anything from a wagon to a rifle.

We are from Farala. It is a village near Banga (district Nawan Shehar). My father had lived with his maternal grandparents in Doraha near Ludhiana. After my father’s mother passed away, and the stepmother neglected him, his maternal uncles took care of him.

I got married in 1975. That same year I went to Austria. There were a few of us who travelled by road at that time. Eventually, our visas expired after a year. We were expelled and forced to cross over to Yugoslavia. Fortunately, I had some money to travel back.

I am 45 years old now. I passed the 10th grade in 1989 and started making horseshoes in 1990, I must be 15 or 16 years old then. In those days this profession was enough to pay the bills, I never felt the need to apply for an actual job.

My childhood was like every other child. We were four brothers and three sisters. My elder brother is a police officer and the youngest is a farm labourer. The middle one passed away. All three sisters are elder to me. My father was very good at farm work.

I am around 74 years old. I am working as a cobbler from 25-26 years. Prior to this, I used to be a farm labourer with the Jatt landlords and then I used to be a daily wage labourer. When I stopped doing the labour work. I learnt shoemaking from the village Balberha

I’ve been doing this for 25 years now. When I began, I bought two goats from the village Togawal. One costed me 1100 rupees and other one was for 900 rupees. When the work picked up, I bought some sheep too. Slowly the number went from 17 to 45