Hyderabad: Tucked away near Falaknuma railway station in Hyderabad’s Old City, around 100 Muslim families of dholak makers have been living and working for nearly a decade.
Every year, during Ganesh Chaturthi, these families get busy making dholaks of varied sizes at their modest tenements. The dholaks are sold across the city during the ten-day Hindu festival, finding buyers, irrespective of who had manufactured them.
Mohd Munawwar, who is from Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, moves around the city on his moped, selling the dholaks. “Many of my buyers are Hindus. Dholaks are musical instruments and used in devotional programs that include singing bhajans,” said Munawwar, who has been in this business for over two decades.
“I make around 50 dholaks during the festive season,” he said.
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Like Munawwar, Mohd Sharfu also makes musical instruments. “Buyers rarely bother about the caste and creed of the sellers. Either they come to us and buy it or we convince them to buy from us,” he smiles.
Each dholak costs anywhere between Rs. 150 and Rs. 500, depending upon the material used in its making. Raw material is brought from several North Indian states, which are assembled in Hyderabad.
“The earnings are a bit high in the festive season, but we keep the seasonal earnings aside to buy raw material and also to have some savings for the lean season,” says Azmath Ali, another dholak maker.
The community altogether makes around 5,000 dholaks. They travel to BHEL, Serilingampally, Sun City, Shamshabad, LB Nagar, and Alwal during this season; such is its popularity. Families attached to Ganesh pandal organisers are regular customers and place orders in advance.
During a time when divisive forces are sowing seeds of distrust across the nation, there are some individuals setting examples of communal harmony and tolerance.
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