Perfume & Politics: All Bottled Up in UP's Kannauj

Mohd. Alam was a child when his grandparents first told him the (distorted) tale of the Mughal empress Nur Jahan accidentally discovering the rooh gulab ittar (rose perfume) in the bath.

“I was also told that my ancestors supplied ittar to rulers and nobles in the mid-19^th century, often travelling for months across desserts, forests and rivers to deliver a small consignment,” says Alam, who is now 40 years old, with a glint in his eyes.

Alam is a known perfumer based in Uttar Pradesh’s Kannauj, also known as the “scent capital of India.” The city, which goes to polls on 20 February, is home to hundreds of varieties of ittar –from floral fragrances such as rose and chameli to unique ones such as the smell of rain-kissed earth.

Two Raids & a Whiff of Politics

In December 2021, Kannauj hit headlines when tax officials raided a perfume trader, Piyush Jain. They recovered Rs 197 crore, and kilos of undisclosed gold. The matter quickly took a political turn when the BJP linked the trader to the Samajwadi Party, who vehemently denied any association.

Soon after, another perfume trader, Pushpraj Jain, was raided. Pushpraj is also a Samajwadi Party MLC, and the party slammed the raids. The Quint visited the city’s famous Bada Bazaar to speak to traders about the impact of the two raids on this close-knit industry, as well as the pandemic-induced lockdowns.

But before that, a quick look at the journey of the ittar bottle – from the farm to the shop.

‘No Rose Like the Kannauji Rose’

Kalicharan, 40, a rose farmer, is at the fields by 4.30 am daily, dressed in a camouflage jacket that protects his hands and face from the thorns he will encounter for the next six hours.

He walks past the rose shrubs, which are taller than him, plucking roses that are in full bloom, and inspecting those that will be ready in the next few days. “By March, the field will be red. There will be roses as far as the eye can see. The rose that grows here is more fragrant than other roses. You won’t find a rose like this anywhere,” says Kalicharan, as he inspects a shrub that has a few rose buds sprouting.

“The shelf life of the rose that grows in Kannauj is rather short. It starts wilting within 24 hours, and then the fragrance also starts diminishes,” he says. That is why Kalicharan, like all other rose farmers in Kannauj, ensures that the plucked roses reach the distilleries by noon every day.
“In the business of ittar, timing is everything,” adds Alam.

Kalicharan works at rose fields owned by Alam, and lives nearby with his wife and their four children. When COVID-19 struck, Kalicharan – like many others – found himself struggling to make ends meet briefly. “The roses I sold for Rs 35/kg were now only fetching Rs 10/kg but I had no option. The children’s education also suffered. Those were hard times but now all that is in the past. I am waiting for March when every branch will break into roses,” he says.

A Pot of Heritage

While Alam makes and sells a range of ittar, his specialisation is the “Shamama,” – an earthy fragrance made using herbs from all over India. “We get herbs from across the country, and they are put to boil in a degh (a copper vessel). The fumes captured then enter the bhapka (a container), and condensed in it,” says Alam.

The degh-bhapka approach is an old one, and many like Alam rely on this technique till date. “This is my heritage. My ancestors introduced this smell... It is this fragrance that spreads mohabbat (love),” says Alam, with a smile on his face.

Behind that smile, however, lies worry. Pre-pandemic, most of the degh were lit but the virus-induced lockdown weakened business. “Only two degh are lit now. Everyone was stuck at home during the lockdown. There were hardly any buyers,” he says.

No Peace, No Perfume

“Only when you are done with all your work and worries do you enter my shop to buy perfume. If you are relaxed, only then will you think of ittar. But that did not happen due to the pandemic and the lockdown, so obviously there were hardly any buyers,” explains Nishish Tiwari, owner of Gauri Sugandh (P) Ltd. in Kannauj’s Bada Bazaar.

The lanes of the market are populated with ittar stores, both old and new. When the news of the tax raid made it to page one across newspapers, followed by political barbs, the rumblings were felt in the market too. Faizan Ahmed, a perfume trader at Bada Bazaar, told The Quint, “For over a month, there was an uneasy lull in the market. The media ruined the reputation of the ittar traders by painting us all as corrupt.”

For Yash Khushwaha, 15, who manages his family’s ittar store in the market in his father’s absence, said, “The SP government had plans of setting up a ‘Perfume Park’ on the lines of the one is France’s Grasse. But when the government changed, work on that was halted. If that had existed, it would have greatly helped us.”

Another ittar trader, Rishi Malhotra, said that ittar production was hit as most raw material comes from Gulf countries and the pandemic related regulations held up work for months.

Ahmed, meanwhile, said, “I don’t care which party comes to power as long as it does something to help our industry grow. Right now, from farmers to traders – all are unhappy,” he said.