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Life's not a bed of roses for Kannauj's perfumers

Alka Singh in Kannauj

Quaint. That's the word that springs to mind as one takes in the redolence and the old-world charm that Kannauj seems to overflow with.

The 'perfume city', as Kannauj has been dubbed, is about 200 kilometres from Uttar Pradesh's capital Lucknow. It has an easy-going, languid grace that makes it seem that it is light years away from the frenzied world of computers and dot-coms.

But, think fragrance and you should think Kannauj. For, it is the largest perfumery of the country: a fact that not many are aware. The modest-looking town generates a turnover of Rs 800 million annually; a major chunk of which is through exports.

Dusty, ruinous roads, constricted lanes speckled with single-storeyed houses, lone horses lugging carts into town are some of the common sights in Kannauj. And perfume making is almost a cottage industry, with every second house fashioning some form of aromatic material or other.

The entire town seems to be involved in the trade -- directly or indirectly. Over 100,000 people are employed in the perfume industry.

Kannauj boasts of 10 sandalwood oil mills that produce over 20,000 kg of oil each year. A kilogram of sandalwood oil costs Rs 14,000. The capital involved in the business is formidable, yet the industry still remains small-scale in status.

Take Vishwanath Misra, for instance. His perfumery is being run by the seventh generation of his family. As he elucidates the crests and troughs of his trade, one cannot help but be transported to the world of Mughal emperors who allowed 'royal' flowers to be used to extract essence.

The technique that Misra employs is as ancient as the world his narrative transports you to: all of 800 years old.

But Lad Dada, who has a unit in the town, doesn't seem very enthusiastic about his age-old occupation. He sighs, reclining on his diwan, that the "business is a very dull. It is very unlike others." And one look at his unit and one readily see why the trade is 'dull'.

Like most of the perfumers of Kannauj, Lad Dada has not kept up with the changing face of his occupation. The unit still employs ancient accouterment and is ill-equipped to face up to the challenges of a modern market.

The trade does not seem very organised. The industry seems bereft of muscle to take on the might of the multinationals as they flood the markets with their merchandise in beautifully-chiselled, crystal vials. The perfumers of Kannauj have a long way to go before they match the economies of scale of the corporate giants in the arena of fragrances.

"One never felt the need to update the manufacturing unit because of the nature of this business," says Lala Amarnath Tandon who is a recent entrant in the business. His unit, however, is much bigger than that of Lad Dada.

The quaintness of the town also extends to the essence-extraction process that the perfumers use. Copper cauldrons (or degs as they are called by the manufacturers), are best suited for the purpose of extracting the flower essence.

Seasonal flowers are put in water inside standard copper vessels, and the entire system is then heated. Firewood lit under the vessels keeps the entire admixture boiling.

"This process continues for more than 15 days so as to get every drop of essence out of the flower," informs Lad Dada.

Then using the condensation technique, the fragrant vapour is collected in another airtight copper beaker filled with sandalwood oil. Sandalwood oil is the base used for manufacturing attar (perfume).

Once the right consistency is reached the attar is stored in jars and then dispensed in small glass bottles. The process of arriving at the right consistency is a rather painstaking one. Innumerable trials and debates precede it.

The rose essence, sold in plain undecorated glass and plastic bottles, fetches around Rs 200 for 10 grams. Rose concentrate costing Rs 500,000 a kilogram is exported to countries like France and China. Perfumes worth Rs 120 million are exported to Saudi Arabia and France every year.

Yet, the advent of a multitude of foreign brands and the affordable price tags that their merchandise carries, has not really shaken Kannauj. It does not use latest manufacturing techniques and affects a rather unfazed demeanour.

"Our market is different. Therefore, the question of competition does not arise. We are not losing out to foreign companies," says Khurram Malik, managing director of Mh Abdul Malik and Sons. Malik's company boasts of a Rs 70-million turnover, mostly through exports to Saudi Arabia.

"What keeps this industry going is the fact that we deal in pure and natural essence," says Lad Dada. "There are cosmetic companies in France that buy rose concentrate from us. They do it just to conduct experiments to get the natural rose fragrance in synthetic form, but have not succeeded so for," he states with a glint of pride in his eyes.

However, Malik does accept that all is not as rosy as his fragrant trade would lull you into believing. "We are losing out due to a totally different reason. Our market has begun to shrink, and this is because of the steep prices of our perfumes. And we have very little no control over the escalating prices. This has made a few people turn to cheaper foreign brands," he says.

Every year, Lad Dada and his son Somnath, travel all the way to a village close to Puri in Orissa during the kevada or screwpine flower season. Then they rent a small house and turn it into their manufacturing unit. All this takes well over a month.

To get khas fragrance, perfumers move to khas producing centres like Musanagar or Aligarh during the 'rose season'. They opine that transportation of raw material to Kannauj works out to be much more expensive.

Sandalwood, which is used as a fixative by the perfumers, is outrageously expensive and difficult to obtain. Some of Kannauj's perfumers say that forest brigand Veerappan lords over 600 hectares of sandalwood forests in Karnataka and has become a major hurdle in the government auctioning sandalwood.

Yet others opine that getting sandalwood is a tricky business. Hushed whispers do the rounds that the much-wanted wood can be obtained by establishing contact with Veerappan's middlemen. Though there's little in the form of evidence to bolster this inference, perfumers in Kannauj do accept that it is the smaller players who are hardest hit in this scenario.

With procurement of basic raw material a tough task, most perfumers have decided to diversify slightly: they now manufacture concentrates of rose, henna, marigold, lemongrass, lavender and screwpine. These concentrates are then sold to the local cosmetic companies and the burgeoning gutkha industry. Both these sections are bulk-buyers.

The perfumers of Kannauj say that almost 70 per cent of the production is consumed by the gutkha industry, while about 20 per cent is used by the cosmetic industry.

While the old-timers in the trade do not seem particularly ecstatic about the idea of almost solely depending on the gutkha industry, they accept that this is a matter of compulsion rather than choice.

"It's the only way left for the perfumers to survive. If Satpal Agarwal -- owner of Baba Zarda -- and some other gutkha manufacturing companies had not come to its rescue, the industry would have probably breathed its last by now," says a Kannauj perfumer.

However, optimists like Vijay Veraya, who has a attar showroom in Lucknow, feels that Kannauj perfumers are seeking the easy way out.

"A quick consignment to the gutkha industry ensures ready money. Selling everything in the form of perfumes would mean uncertain sale and profits," he claims.

Veraya cites his own showroom as an example, which has grown manifold in the last 20 years. The secret of his success is experimenting with new fragrances, which he claims has not been attempted by the Kannauj perfumers.

"There are perfumers who have experimented with artificial fixatives and have found aldehydes a close substitute to a fixative. It could easily be developed as an alternative to sandalwood. But it hasn't been marketed well," he says.

While the Kannauj perfume industry is not as organised as it could be to make it a real force to reckon with on an international scale, various attempts have been made to provide a boost to the enterprise.

Organisations like Fragrance and Flavour Development Centre (FFDC) have come up to help the industry improve its product quality. The FFDC assists perfumers in quality control.

The Central Institute for Manufacturing Aromatic Plans (CIMAP), based in Lucknow, undertakes research in aromatic plants.

The institute grows flowers and their hybrids which are sold to the perfumers. CIMAP also helps perfumers in marketing their wares in India and abroad.

However, most Kannauj perfumers are not very keen to avail of the services offered.

Truth is, as the gutkha industry grows in leaps and bounds, there is no mortal fear to Kannauj's perfumeries.

"These is no dearth of money in the gutkha industry. And it keeps our perfumeries running," says another perfumer.

Kannauj, today, seems content to rely on the paan masala companies. But, as enterprising traders like Veraya feel, the scene may soon undergo a complete change. Life for the perfumers may not remain as quaint or fragrant then…

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