Dear Editor
I shall be grateful if you can publish my letter unanimously. By disclosing my name I’ll loose my job, whatever the little work get will stop and will also be criticized for my comments.
I would also like to refer about those smaller people, karigars who make and supply jewellery to the shops. Let me try and put it little bit differently. Say for example if no one was making these lovely items around the world what will the shop keepers display? May be they themselves perhaps!!
Yes I do understand that business all over the world try to get items cheaper because they want to make money. That’s why they are in that line.
The thinking they see is :- the small craftsmen does not need to eat, no need for clothes, no need for housing, no need for a car, no need to pay for gas, electric and water, petrol, insurance tax and no need to feed their children……. because they only have to eat 1gm of gold to live on. It’s because we are treated like illiterates. This is how we feel within our community just because we do not have anything big to show off.
However at same time we want to be part of this community. We are one community and are interrelated and connected one way or the other by marriages and so on. Since we are all related in many ways then why I feel that unfair advantage is taken of these small crafts people and also looked upon with some bitterness?
It will be the Pattni jewellers who will be better off themselves by supporting the small workers and encouraging them. That’s the way to progress by helping each other to achieve the goal... but in today’s society like ours who cares..............
I did not wish to write this e-mail but it does hurt to see this happening. I hope I did not bored you from all this.
When this Pattni Connection website was launched I felt at last we Pattnis have something going here. And believe me it is.
I asked one young man if he would be interested in developing this site and to make it more appealing, He started laughing and made me laugh as well until we both had tears in our eyes then he said, “Sir these Sonis can’t even afford to pay 2.00 paisa for the work you do, how are they going to afford my fees........??”
You work for almost nothing why should I do the same? They go to a bar and spend 300 and go for entertainment spend 3000 but when you go to sell your jewellery they wont even pay you 1 paisa more,,, so I am sorry sir with respect.........I feel sorry for you Sonis. Really it’s a shame but life must go on...”
Well, he is right. We lost our trade and our special language that we had as well. By the way the person putting these comments forward is 85 years old and been in trade since he was 12 ........
