‘My earnings are not even sufficient to buy medicine’: Kashmir’s only Tonga maker fights for survival

Srinagar: On a sunny Sunday morning, 70-year-old Mohammad Abdullah lights the furnace in his shop at Parimpora to mould the iron.

He seeks help from a local shopkeeper to fix it in a Tonga that he has to repair by the end of the day.

While repairing the cart, he is not sure when he will get another customer. Horse carts have faded into history and motor vehicles have taken over the transportation system which has hit Abdullah hard.

Abdullah is the only horse cartwright in Srinagar city. It has been 50 years since he started this profession. Come 2022, he is staring at a bleak future.

A tonga is a horse-driven- cart, which used to be the main mode of transport in Kashmir till the 1960s.

“It has been over 50 years since I am associated with this profession. Tongas used to be the main mode of transport and I would receive a number of customers from different parts of the valley every day,” he recalled.

Abdullah said he now rarely gets any customers as Tongas have been almost completely replaced by cars and autorickshaws.

“My earnings from this profession are not even enough to buy medicine. We don’t have enough customers now. Even my family isn’t happy with the profession. Whatever customers I receive are from Sopore and city outskirts,” he said.

Abdullah said that the art of making horse carts will vanish from the valley as none from the younger generation is ready to learn it. “None of my family has shown any interest to learn this art. Similarly, those who associated with this profession gave up and switched to other professions,” he said.

Abdullah lamented that the government failed to uplift the cartwrights. “While those who drove Tongas were given autorickshaws, the makers were ignored by the government,” he said.

Abdullah said that a Tonga costs Rs 30,000 and has the least possibility of suffering damages.

Once the only mode of transportation, Tongas used to gallop everywhere – be it the Srinagar city or the far-flung rural areas. The tonga is believed to have been introduced from Peshawar in 1912 by Peshawar Pathans.