An award-winning Marathi novel explores the gradual demise of the family tailor institution and the disappearance of India’s ancestral professions rooted in traditional handcraftsmanship
Devidas Saudagar operates from a makeshift shop located near his home in Tuljapur, after Saudagar Tailors shut down
The thread that plays in my hand, the scissors that fit snugly in my grip, the machine that whirs swiftly, the measuring tape that sways around my neck...these things have become integral to my life, says Vithu, the tailor protagonist of Usvan (seams come apart), the novel which recently won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2024.
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As Vithu expresses a deep attachment to his ancestral occupation, especially the fond feelings for the tools that his family lived off for two generations, we can hear echoes from other literary works. Lead characters shaped by Munshi Premchand (Godaan) and Rangnath Pathare (Pachola) speak Vithu’s language. His thoughts resonate with Thomas Hood’s The Song of the Shirt which portrays the dehumanising working conditions of seamstresses in Industrial era London—“Seam, and gusset, and band/ Band, and gusset, and seam/ Till over the buttons I fall asleep/ And sew them on in a dream!”
Vithu’s voice seems the voice of many who lament the loss of livelihood options, particularly tailoring. Interestingly, Vithu’s creator, author Devidas Saudagar, is a 33-year-old tailor-by-day-writer-by-night. He lives in Tuljapur. Saudagar always wanted Vithu to be a carrier of multiple stories. “Vithu seems to tell my story, but the narrative moves beyond the autobiographical mode. He represents all tailors of small-town India who currently face economic crises. They cannot sustain their families, as their clients are fast-moving towards ready-to-wear mass-produced garments,” says the debutant novelist. His shop Saudagar Tailors, at one point a bustling enterprise in the Mangalvaarpeth market, shut down post-COVID in 2022. Saudagar hopes to reopen his shop one day when circumstances improve. The award is definitely a ray of hope in Saudagar’s life, as it brings him critical acclaim and encouragement from peers-readers-litterateurs-book publishers to take on his second proposed novel on unemployed youth in rural Maharashtra.
Saudagar’s novel Usvan recently won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2024
“Tailoring is a way of life and a means of survival for me. My father took to tailoring after he couldn’t survive as a farm labourer,” says the author, clarifying that while many professions are admittedly caste-driven in India, Usvan deliberately does not identify the protagonist Vithu as a shimpi (tailor by caste). Vithu is presented as a working class service-giver who cannot make two ends meet. He is a clever craftsman devoted to deadlines. But over the years, he loses the meaty orders, and is left with small jobs of mending tears, darning holes, sewing buttons, altering hems, repairing zippers, and stitching school cloth bags and political party flags.
“A tailor like Vithu is the inexpensive fallback option for quick fixes, but not a conscious choice for intricate high-end designer clothing orders. I felt such a person should not be defined by caste, but by the lack of means and status. The novel is about underprivileged, struggling skilled professionals in our villages, who have not found newer sources of sustenance,” says Saudagar who feels the award for Usvan will put the spotlight on the occupational crisis faced by real-life tailors and other labourers/craftsmen all over Maharashtra.
Usvan captures the decade starting from 2006, a period marked by the opening up of the readymade garment industry in India and significant leaps in mobile phone usage. Usvan also cautiously treads the political landscape. It holds no reference to the Maratha morchas or the rise of the OBCs in Maharashtra politics. Though set in the recently renamed Dharashiv (earlier Osmanabad), the novel makes only veiled references to warring caste groups and bickering political factions of Marathwada. It doesn’t once mention the ouster of the Congress party by the BJP at central and state levels.
Saudagar says party politics and caste dynamic are not his areas of interest, though they would have undoubtedly generated juicy fiction. He’d rather focus on an evolving social dynamic around ready-to-wear mass-produced clothing.
“I am trying to locate the slow death of the institution of the family tailor in our villages. I am writing about the young tailors, myself included, who are socially unfit and financially unstable.” Saudagar took to tailoring after trying out odd jobs and even dropping out of school at one point. He later opted for open university education to complete his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, and meanwhile espoused full-time writing as a vocation. At this point, he writes only at night or dawn, reserving daytime for the responsibilities of a family of two children, a wife, and elderly parents. His younger brother has taken temporary recourse to poultry farming.
What stands out in Usvan is that it is not a sob story. The sorry state of Vithu and Ganga’s life is obvious. Their children cannot go for a school picnic. Lunch is amti-bhakri-kanda; a cup of chai is the sole respite from the relentless, back-breaking cut-and-stitch routine. Turmeric powder is the only affordable medication for any injury. Amidst deepening penury, Ganga depends on food grains donated by neighbours to keep the kitchen flames burning.
Literally and metaphorically, the household pieces together scraps and offcuts to eke out a living. But beyond these vignettes of scarcity, Vithu’s life is infused with unique experiences that enlighten the reader too. Vithu is a proficient tailor who wholeheartedly serves his village, fulfilling the role of the trusted seamster who always attends to small mending needs. He is available for the last-minute asks from unescorted kids and dependent relatives. He lends a patient ear
to village elders-teachers, but takes on the village money collectors who extort haftas in the name of religion. He reminds them of kalyankari Shivaji Maharaj who put people’s welfare before other priorities. Vithu holds no resentment towards the more affluent who go to cities to buy new clothes, yet he is hurt when money lender Bhima Pawar doesn’t compensate him for his labour.
Daughter Nanda is a bright spot in Vithu’s life. She deeply respects her father’s strong work ethic and her mother’s unwavering devotion to the household. She is a writer-in-the-making who appreciates the power of words from an impressionable age. Nanda diligently journals her daily ruminations, capturing moments both uplifting and despondent. She believes that documenting hardships on paper helps to alleviate them. Her school essays creatively incorporate metaphors—delicate threads, family fabric, seamless support—inspired by the world of tailoring. Her lyrical essay, Sui bolu lagli tar (If the needle starts speaking) captures the importance of small objects (needle-like) in life. The positivity in Nanda is infectious. It helps Vithu to locate the poetry in his life. Interestingly, Nanda writes in nagari Marathi taught in textbooks; she mentions akhand pravas (unending journey); Vithu laments deh manji lamblachak chindhi (body-mind turning into a long tattered rag). Usvan’s magic rests on Vithu’s Marathwadi dialect which embodies a unique raw beauty. Words like amandhapkya (sudden) and yelvas (special new moon day) enrich spoken Marathi.
Vithu and family’s admiration for mystic poet Kabir and revered saint Namdeo—both tailors by profession—adds a healing element to the novel, transforming it into a vibrant work of art. Saint Namdeo finds spiritual liberation in “sui aani satuli katri gaj dora” [needle, thread, scissors and tape] the simple tools that can shape a meaningful life. Vithu espouses this definition of simplicity; just as he lives up to Kabir’s treatment of the human body as a finely woven zhini chadariya.
This columnist is grateful to Usvan for a distinct sense of hope. It illustrates that even when one’s world crumbles and ancestral roots are threatened, the power of belief can see us through. Saudagar and his hero Vithu cling to the scissors and the measuring tape—in the hope of a better fabric of life!
Sumedha Raikar-Mhatre is a culture columnist in search of the sub-text. You can reach her at [email protected]
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