Lessons - The Tailor under the Tree

We went to the tailor under the pongamia tree, to give the salwar kurta for stitching. For my daughter. For Sankranthi.

Two years ago. He used to be loaded with orders, and approaching him for help two weeks before a function was pointless. He would simply not be able to accept the work.

He was then in a small shop opposite the pongamia tree. On the other side of the road. Very busy. Always on his machine. With the inch tape hung around his neck.

Then Real Estate happenned. The owner of the bunch of small shops sold it to a builder. Who built many huge fancy apartments .
The tailor was on the streets.

In his mid forties maybe. With children to raise maybe. He could not give up or allow feeling dejected. He just moved his sewing machine under the tree. And kept on.

The customers must have fallen. The old ones who knew him would come to him, recognizing him. Newer people do not wish to engage with a tailor unders atree. Doubting his abilities, maybe. Not considering him quite respectable maybe. Wanting to engage with better off tailors maybe.

And as the wave of western clothes and ready mades takes on, the work for tailors has also been decreasing.

Poverty compunds poverty. As riches compound riches.

Meantime the fancy apartment for which he was moved out, large and shining with metal and glass, stay unoccupied. Maybe the builder could not find buyers in the slump. Maybe there were other legal issues.

The tailor however sits under his tree, stitching. Without a complaint. With a smile to those who wish him as they pass by.

I also see him when I pass, something within me shrinks. At the enormity of our collective crimes.

...

Went to a tailor under a tree to get some work done. My daughter pointed out, "He was the same tailor who used to sit in that shop opposite which is knocked down. Now he sits under the tree." We stayed silent.

Some small shops were knocked down to make way for some fancy four bedroomed apartment complex. Those old tenents of those shops were evicted. And their livlihoods shattered.

This tailor however continues under a tree. His cliente is here. On rainy days he probaly does not stitch.

I see myself, and my lifestyle, and wonder how many simple lives this one life could accomodate. I can only stay silent facing the collective complicity whereby the tailor needs to move to under the tree, giving way to greater buying powers.