It’s a little past noon, and Mohammed Idris is tired. Mostly of waiting around. Since 6 am, his wares have been bought by a juice cart, a small eatery, a shop, and the gosht seller on the corner. “Subah se yahin hu,” he grumbles. “This is my daily routine now.” The grey-haired Idris, who looks far older than his claimed age of 40 years, remembers a time when his days used to be far busier. “Ten years ago, there were more than a dozen of us around this spot itself,” he says, settling down on the stoop of a medical store in the Bhendi Bazaar bylane. “Now it’s only me.”

Idris is a bhishti, a member of the ancient water-carrying tribe , known as Pakhalis in Marathi, and mashaq-wallahs in Hindi and Urdu. The latter term comes from the ‘mashaq’ or the hand-stitched bag of goat or buffalo skin, used to carry the water. The most famous bhishti was perhaps Gunga Din, from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, a parody of the colonial officers’ attitude towards the Indian labourers, and the manner in which they were treated. “Put some juldee in it or I’ll marro you,” yells a grumpy British soldier, as the “regimental bhishti” serves water to the troops on the battlefield from his goatskin bag.

It has been a long time since the Raj, but the bhishti community has continued to plod across neighbourhoods like Bhendi Bazaar, Dongri and Pydhonie. Their numbers have dwindled and there is no battle to be fought, except the one with Mumbai summers perhaps. But the scorching heat also means slightly better business.

Until about a decade ago, bhishtis toting their leather mashaqs were a common sight across old Bombay’s bylanes. Pushing a cylinder of water, with handles attached like a wheelbarrow, they supplied water for cooking, cooking and sometimes, drinking purposes as well. Back when water cuts were frequent and buildings hadn’t been fitted with motor pumps, a bhishti was on-call through the day.

“Now I sell about 12 mashaqs on a good day,” says Idris, as a shop owner beckons him over. There, he haggles for a spell, and then fills his mashaq twice from the cylinder. Each is 20 litres, and will earn him about 15 rupees. Less if the shopkeeper out-bargains him.

“What to do, people don’t want to pay for water,” says Anwar Ul-Haq, as he fills his cylinder from a pipe near Char Null in Dongri. He has been up since 6am, roaming the neighbourhood, and only managed to snag two customers so far. He’s from Bihar, and not a “khandani bishti”, having only taken up the trade because he couldn’t find an other job. “My brother used to do mashaq ka kaam, but is now a taxi driver,” says Ul-Haq. “My license is not coming through so I’m stuck here. The day I find another job, I’m out.”

Those from the bhishti community have gradually moved away to other professions, says bhishti and mashaq maker Yakub Ali. “There are now all these boys from Bihar doing this work while they hunt for a better job. There’s no money in this trade.” The expenses outweigh the earnings. A bhishti’s daily earnings hover between Rs 50 to Rs 150. Every six months, Rs 1200-1500 must be spent to buy a new mashaq. “So they darn it as much as possible,” says Ali, smiling. “And use it until it falls to pieces.”

Ali and his uncle Rahim are among the city’s few remaining mashaq makers. Each leather bag takes up to eight hours to craft, and they sell no more than a dozen a month. They also make smaller versions of the mashaqs, with a capacity of 25 litres, fitted with plastic corks. These are purchased by the older generation and filled with drinking water for travel. “We have to adapt with time. The bigger mashaqs will soon not be bought at all.”

Azizuddin Sheikh rues the steadily dwindling number of bhishtis in the city. The 84-year-old, who was part of the trade for four decades, talks about how the community had provided water for the Mughal armies during Emperor Akbar’s rule, and had even provided water to Humayun during battle. “When I moved here after Partition, bhishtis were everywhere,” he recalls. “I supplied water to shops, weddings, and even the red-light area near Pila House.” Today, he looks after the baori (well) inside a Dongri masjid, which is where most bhishtis stock up on water.

Suddenly, he springs to his feet, and insists we guess what shoulder he slung the 20-litre mashaqs on. One is almost half an inch lower than the other. “That was the kind of demand a bhishti had,” he says, shaking his head. “Such is life, beta, what can I say?”

