Up the dusty grey stairs of a blue building tucked between shops and shutters, stood the spacious workplace of Zari Karigars — seamlessly shuffling beads into a pin and passing the white crystals through the yellow fabric. Three workers with swiftly moving hands were completing kurtas for the wholesale market. Sunlight filtered through the bare windows, and fans whirred in a white noise. Resplendent beads stacked in neat bags on the right lay rejected. In the corner of the studio sat Vivek Ji, the owner of this business. 

A man of business and adaptability, Vivek Ji has lived in Dharavi since 2009, preserving the art of Zari with him since he was 13. After leaving his farming family in Jhitkahia, Bihar, he moved to Jalandhar in Punjab to learn this art. “The person I worked for gave me food and shelter, and 10 rupees per day,” he reminisces. When asked why he had moved in the first place, he said that farming was not a sustainable path to generate a steady income. Money went towards his children’s tuition fees and other household expenses; in his village, everyone moved out to earn a living. He told us that farming on 2-4 acres of land and producing 20-50 quintals of rice and wheat did not suffice their livelihood.

His intricate and skilled work took him to Jaipur, where he spent 9 years working in these kinds of units. Dharavi became his home very quickly — his visit with his family at the very start helped him get a better idea of how his own Zari startup would fare. Since then, he put up the wooden beams on which colourful cloth would be displayed for skilled Karigars like him to showcase their skills on 2,500 pieces at a time. The studio has become a space of continuous activity, shaped by the rhythms of needlework and conversation. He employs only skilled men, he mentioned; the women have a separate boutique to work for in which they do Zari work on lehengas, sarees and kurtas.

In Mumbai, he says, it’s easier to get permits. Due to Dharavi’s abundance of raw materials like beads, threads, needles and similar requirements, the work is done faster, and they get orders quickly. The proximity to material suppliers and dyeing units keeps costs low and production efficient. Three wooden beam frames stood in his studio, each occupied by one worker with a small bale of white beads and a precise needle. “They all do seasonal work too,” Vivek Ji says. Seasonal work included going to Surat, Ahmedabad and Ludhiana for Zari work when sales are low in Mumbai, where they primarily work on shawls and sweaters.

First, they receive the design from the client, and Vivek Ji brings the cloth. The design is drawn on a white paper, which is then traced onto the cloth, once it is cut into vague kurta-like shapes. The industrious Karigars then get to work, swiftly sewing beads in plastic strings into cloth. Finally, these finished pieces are sent to be sewn, after which they are sold.

When asked what his favourite piece of work is, he says, “I have no favourite. We work on anything given to us. If it turns out well, then that makes me happy.” He has worked with DFC (Days For Clothing) for 4-5 months, which has kept him in business very well.

When asked about his initial stay in Dharavi, he mentioned that it was a much more dangerous place. “People like me, who are from Bihar, would be caught and have their belongings stolen, but this was back in 2010. Things have improved a lot since then,” he tells us in this regard. The community now feels safer, more settled, with access to schools, ration shops, and connectivity.

At the mention of redevelopment, his first idea was to move to Nala Sopara or Kalyan, which he calls “side areas”. “Once tall buildings are built here, the studio will also become expensive,” he says. Vivek Ji said that there might be a Zari company that gets established here, in which case, he, along with his workers, would move to work there.

“When I brought my family here, they started in a rented house. But my boys kept getting lost in the streets, many times I was rebuked by the police when they were found,” he laughs, justifying why his family is still in Bihar. His sons are now in school there, and he visits them occasionally. This studio is his home. He would shift the wooden beams at the end of the day and sleep there, and his meals would arrive daily at the same place. His greatest concern lies in getting business that can generate the income that he can send back to his family.

Art like Zari can be conserved only by people like him, who are keen to learn and appreciate and employ workers who still believe in this art. Those he calls ‘workers’ are artisans who, he firmly believes, can persevere through the revolution of fast fashion and machinery.