ON A COLD DAY THIS JANUARY, Zamiruddin sat behind a desk facing the courtyard of his house in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, warming his hands over a small fire. Scattered on the desk were some papers, a pack of cigarettes, and an unfinished black violin.
It was difficult to hear Zamiruddin speak; before him, in the yard, were 30-odd men bent over shapes of wood, hammering, sawing and planing. Soon, one workman came up to Zamiruddin and presented him with the fruit of his labours: a freshly burnished violin. Zamiruddin tuned the instrument’s four strings and, closing his eyes, plucked the strings a few times, before playing a short snatch of a melody with a bow. He nodded, and gave the piece back to the workman. The new violin was ready.
The courtyard of Zamiruddin’s ancestral house, which fronts a narrow lane in the Purana Gunj neighbourhood of Rampur, has doubled as a violin workshop for over 65 years. Every month, Zamiruddin and his craftsmen hand-make between 150 and 200 instruments. He claimed he is the only person in India producing them on this scale. (A small number of violins are also made in Kolkata, but “the production there is very limited,” he said.)
This high-volume business began in 1947 with a single violin. Zamiruddin’s father, Haseenuddin, was a renowned cabinetmaker in Rampur, a former princely estate 175 kilometres east of New Delhi near what is now the border with Uttarakhand.
The first violin Haseenuddin made was an act of brotherly love. In 1942, his younger brother Ameeruddin travelled to Bombay and returned home with a violin, then a rare object in Rampur. Ameeruddin, who played the violin as a pastime, was deeply proud of his instrument. Five years later, however, he accidentally dropped the violin. It splintered, and Ameeruddin became morose. Nothing seemed to console him.
Haseenuddin hated to see his brother in this state, so he began to closely study the broken instrument. “Mere walid ustaad thhey (My father was a genius),” Zamiruddin recounted over the din of the craftsmen. Using his skills in woodcraft, Haseenuddin designed and crafted a new violin for his brother. Ameeruddin came to smile once again, and Haseenuddin discovered his own passion for the instrument. Along with chairs, tables, beds and wardrobes, the cabinetmaker started producing violins.
In time, Haseenuddin’s instruments found buyers throughout India, and he eventually gave up making furniture and concentrated only on violins. When he died in 1996 at the age of 78, Zamiruddin, his eldest son, inherited the business.
“Playing a violin no doubt is an art,” Zamiruddin reflected. “But making violins is also an art and has to be mastered. My father taught the art to me. I pass it on to my workmen.”
But it is difficult for Zamiruddin to find labour for this intensive work. “Nowadays, people are able to find jobs that pay more,” he said. “When I employ a new workman, I have to teach him the nuances of making violins.” One of his craftsmen is 30-year-old Mobin. “I have been making violins for the last 15 years,” Mobin told me. He now only gives finishing touches to the violins, which are priced from Rs 1100 to Rs 2000.
Zamiruddin says his violins are for students of music or people who want to learn the basics of playing the instrument; some of his biggest markets are in states such as Goa and Kerala, in which music is a part of the school curriculum. Professional violin players or the musicians of the Hindi film industry use only German violins, which Zamiruddin acknowledges as the best in the world; but they cost Rs 80,000 or more.
Apart from Germany, violins were also manufactured on a large scale in the former Czechoslovakia, which in 1993 disintegrated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The latter name caught Zamiruddin’s fancy, and after a courtyard renovation in 2006, he renamed his workshop New Slovakia Musical.
Zamiruddin’s entry-level violins now face stiff competition—but not from Europe. Cheap violins made in China have begun to flood Indian markets. “The trade ties between India and China improved around 10 years back,” he remarked. “In China, violins are made in large numbers using machines, so the Chinese are able to sell the violins at a much lower price. Chinese violins have affected business not just in Rampur or India but throughout the world.”
Unlike his father, however, Zamiruddin is no longer counting on violins alone. Instead, he has gone back to his father’s roots. Pointing to a corner in the courtyard where workmen were busy making a double bed, he remarked, “I have started making furniture also.”