The afternoon heat has lulled the city. Markets wear a deserted look and traffic on the streets is thin. Oblivious to the blazing sun, a swarthy and lean Nanhe Kewat, wearing a vest drenched in his sweat and a pair of shorts, is busy nailing odd pieces of wood to the hull of a boat in Sarsaiyya Ghat, a small neighbourhood on the banks of the Ganges in Kanpur.
“The monsoon has arrived. At the peak of the monsoon, rivers will rise and flood villages. Demand for boats will be high,” says Kewat, as he takes the pencil stub tucked behind his ear to draw a line on a wooden plank before sawing it.
The monsoon generally arrives over the plains of north India in July but the rains are intermittent. It is in the months of August and September that the downpour is continuous.
Several big and small rivers snake through Uttar Pradesh, a large state in north India. With a population of around 200 million, it is the most populated state of India. At the peak of the monsoon, most the rivers swell and flood the villages on their banks.
“Boats will be needed to rescue people from flood-hit villages. Also, boats then will become the only mode of transport in the inundated villages,” Kewat says. For him, it is a race against time. Sarsaiyya Ghat, at present, is strewn with boats, ready to be dispatched whenever there is an emergency call from any flood-hit village.
“Our boats are used in far-off places, such as Gorakhpur and Jhansi,” Kewat says. Gorakhpur is a district in Uttar Pradesh state about 500 kilometres east of Kanpur and Jhansi, another district, 200 kilometres south.
Kanpur, a major city of the state, has witnessed several changes in the last couple of centuries, but things remain more or less static in Sarsaiyya Ghat, notwithstanding its vicinity to Bada Chauraha, the nerve centre of the city.
A glittering and swanky mall today towers over every other building at Bada Chauraha but Sarsaiyya Ghat is still scattered with boats, just as it was a 100 or 200 years ago. The place still reverberates, from morning till evening, with the sounds of hammering and sawing of wood for making boats.
Sarsaiyya Ghat is a small settlement of around 50 families and all of them are into boat-making.
“The people in Sarsaiyya Ghat are the descendants of Kewat, the legendary boatman of the Hindu epic ‘Ramayana’, who in his boat gave passage to Lord Rama across a river when the latter was in exile,” Kewat claims. Kewat means a boatman.
He says that his ancestors settled in Sarsaiyya Ghat centuries ago and have remained engaged only in boat-making. “We never took up any other occupation. We make boats and row them for people,” he says.
“I remember my grandfather making boats. My father did not take-up any other occupation and made boats. Following my father’s footsteps, I also started making boats and have taken up no other occupation,” Kewat, 49, says.
He claims that Kanpur is one of the only two places in Uttar Pradesh where boats are made.
Kewat says, “Apart from Kanpur, the other place where boats are made is Allahabad. But there is a difference between the boats made in Allahabad and Kanpur. In Kanpur, the hull is shaped out of a steel sheet while in Allahabad, the hull is made by nailing planks of wood sideways.”
As several rivers criss-cross Uttar Pradesh, boats are always much in demand in the towns and villages along the rivers as a mode of transport throughout the year.
“Boats are used to ferry people round the year. The banks of the rivers are very fertile. At the peak of the summer season, rivers shrink and farmers grow different melons and gourds on the banks of the rivers. Boats are also used to ferry fruit and vegetables.” Kewat says.
Kewat is engaged only in boat making but he is not sure how many boats he makes in a year. “I have never kept an account,” he says. “But my first priority is to make boats for rescue operations during the peak of the monsoon.”
Every year before the monsoon hits Uttar Pradesh, Kewat works round the clock. “I cannot afford to take a break because that will mean people remaining stranded in flood-hit villages. I want to make as many boats as I can,” he says.
The lanes and bylanes of Sarsaiyya Ghat are stacked with steel sheets and planks of wood. In every available place in the locality, men are busy making boats.
Kewat can make a boat measuring 12 feet in length and six feet in width within four days.
Shaping the hull is the first step. The hull is shaped out of a steel sheet which is braced up by nailing pieces of wood to it.
Once the hull is steady, the deck is made by nailing planks of woods across the breadth of the hull and the boat is complete.
Kewat says a boat of the above mentioned dimension can carry 10 to 12 people at a time and “costs around Rs12,000 [Dh690]”.
He says, “At the peak of the monsoon, we get demands for boats from all parts of Uttar Pradesh. But the demand is more from the eastern part of the state. The eastern part has a very dense network of rivers, streams and canals. Much of it is inaccessible by roads and bridges. After a heavy rainfall, many villages become inaccessible. Agencies responsible for the safety of the people such as the police and disaster management groups buy boats from me.”
At times, Kewat also makes boats measuring up to 25 feet in length.
Kewat is proud of himself for two reasons — he considers himself the descendant of the legendary boatman Kewat of the epic “Ramayana” and also because he is doing something that saves the lives of people.
“I will always make boats,” he says.
When business is lean, Kewat works as carpenter but that happens very rarely.
“I do odd jobs as a carpenter whenever summoned to a household,” he says.
But at present, Kewat is busy only in making boats.
Rohit Ghosh is a writer based in Kanpur, India.
