Come September and it is time for Mohammed Alam and his team to travel hundreds of miles from their village Chhatapur in Sapaul district of Bihar to the queen of hills, Shimla.

Once paddy sowing is over in their own region, marginalised farmers leave for other climes at this time of the year to don the role of ‘ rui pinjane walas’ (those who fluff cotton wool for quilts). Alam and his group of five have been coming to Shimla for more than a decade to earn an extra income from a vocation they learnt from their ancestors.

Alam says they have no choice but to travel nearly 2,000 km from their village and stay away from their families for months in Himachal Pradesh’s biting cold. “It is difficult to eke out a decent living from the small landholdings we have, especially when you have to educate your children. So one needs to have another source of income.”

Many in his village are familiar with using the Dhuniki, a traditional contraption that resembles a musical instrument and is used to fluff out old, used cotton wool before stuffing it back into quilts and pillows. Their services have few takers back home, where the climate is warm and the people cannot pay as much as the families in cities like Shimla do. “People in Shimla need quilts round the year, the scope of earning is much more there,” says Alam.

The team generally ventures out in pairs, roaming around residential colonies looking for work. The twang produced by plucking the string of their bowed carding instrument with, what they call, the jista signals their arrival. The Dhuniki costs about ₹1,600. The whole process of taking out old cotton wool from a quilt, carding it, stuffing it back and sewing up the quilt takes over three hours, a lot of energy and exposure to dust. For all that they charge ₹250-300 per quilt. “On an average we earn anything from ₹800 to ₹1,200 a day and more on certain days,” says Alam.

The team also visits suburbs and villages around Shimla. Earlier they would visit cities like Amritsar in Punjab, but Shimla offers a decent market so they migrate here every winter. “It was a good day today as we got to work on half-a-dozen quilts from a gurudwara,” says Ramesh Sharma, one of the group members. He accompanies Noor Mohammed on the job every day.

All of them have lived together in Shimla at the same rented place for years. “It is difficult to search for a new place every year, so we retain this premises, and sometimes our relatives or neighbours from our village use it during the rest of the year.” In their 3-5 month stay they are able to save anything from ₹10,000 to ₹16,000 per month.

However, health becomes an issue for the recyclers. “Since we are exposed to dust from old cotton wool, we often suffer allergies and have to spend money on medicines,” says Mohammed Islam, who accompanies Alam from one colony to another.

Has the onslaught of cotton fluffing machines affected their income? “While some do prefer the machine method, most homemakers find it easier if someone does the job at their doorstep instead of having to pay coolies to carry the quilts to the market for fluffing and sewing.”

The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi

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