All about Kannauj & Raju Mama's business

Any one here knows this place?
Kudos to BBAT set designers for being so authentic. Great job guys👍🏼

Found this interesting blog by a french researcher & thought of sharing with fellow BBATians. Enjoy!
THIS IS NOT MY BLOG.ALL CREDITS TO L-A CHECK OUT THE LINK BELOW FOR MORE INTERESTING STUFF.
http://scentedtravels.blogspot.com/2006/02/kannauj-perfume-capital-of-india.html

Kannauj: Perfume capital of India

Traditional distillation units in Kannauj.

Kannauj is to India what Grasse is to France: the country's perfume capital!!! Grasse has been the center of the perfumery industry in France ever since the 17th century and is now considered the birthplace of modern perfumery, where natural extracts are blended with a myriad of synthetic odoriferous chemical compounds. But in Grasse, the traditional techniques for extracting floral oils, such as enfleurage have been abandoned. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the perfumery industry in Grasse has never ceased to be modernized as fine perfumery was getting more and more popular throughout the World. I visited Grasse two years ago, like thousands of tourists do each year, on a day trip from the beach on the Cte d'Azur, eager to embark on a voyage through odors and maybe to a place where the daily routine of the people would be in unison with the flower picking and the various practices used to harvest the odorant substance from these flowers... But it seemed that the only remnants of this traditional livelihood (an old distillation apparatus and some chassis for the enfleurage technique) had been relegated to a display in the Muse International de la Parfumerie.

And so, when I arrived in Kannauj, famous for its sandalwood-based attar-making industry, it felt like I had undertaken a trip back in time- I had finally found what I had been looking for when going to Grasse!!! There, the attars are still made exactly like they were a few centuries ago, with the same equipment!

A worker is squeezing vetiver oil (Khus Ruh) out of a mop.

At every street corner, it seemed, there was a sandalwood oil distillery, and so as I was walking through the city, my sense of smelling was awakened by the sweet and woody odor of sandalwood. Every morning, I was amazed to see a group of few men bathing in the water, still charged with fragrant molecules, that the distillery disposed of in the streets. Indeed, in Kannauj it is well known that sandalwood oil is an excellent antiseptic, and so bathing in this water ensures to keep away from skin diseases!!!

Kannauj, located near the confluence of the Ganges and Kali river is thought to be right on the routes that brought perfumes, spices, metals, silks and gems from India and China to the Middle East. It reached the climax of its glory during the 7th century AD when it was the capital of the empire led by Harsha Vardhan. It is during this period that Kannauj started to play an important role in Indian perfumery. Later, the perfumers of Kannauj provided the Mogul emperors with scented oils.

Perfumers in Kannauj are famous for making sandalwood-based attars. An attar is the essence of a flower (of a root, or even earth) that is captured in 100% sandalwood oil. Sandalwood oil is used as a base material because it has a strong fixative property and can keep the floral essence over a long period of time. Attar making is a type of hydrodistillation, where the plant material is placed in water in a copper still (Deeg). The still is covered by a copper lid (Sarpos) which is sealed to the Deeg with a mixture of cotton and clay. A bamboo pipe (Chonga) insulated with twine connects the still to a receiver which is placed in a cold water bath.

A few Deegs with the bamboo pipe leading to the receiver placed in a cold water bath.

In one of the factories, a worker is preparing for the next distillation, putting the bamboo pipe in the receiver

The plant material is placed in water in the Deeg. The still sits on a fire and upon heating, the odoriferous molecules from the plant material vaporize along with the water. The fragrant oil and the water condense in the receiver where the oil is trapped in the sandalwood oil as the condensed water sinks to the bottom of the receiver as it is denser than the sandalwood and the floral oil.

Under the Deeg, firewood is used to heat the water and the plant material.

Once the distillation is over, the odoriferous oil trapped in the sandalwood oil is placed in the sun in a leather bottle. The bottles used to be made out of camel skin, now they are made out of buffalo skin. And so the water is being evaporated through the buffalo skin.

One of the leather bottles where residual water is dried from the final product.

I visited many attar and sandalwood oil factories. The smell of these attars is very strong and can be associated to a heavy oriental perfume. But it is subtle at the same time, as behind the rose or the jasmine odor, one can sense the sweet and woody note from the sandalwood. A very special attar is Attar Mitti. Instead of distilling plant material such as vetiver roots, rose or jasmine flowers, half-baked clay is being distilled. The clay is first collected in neighboring villages, where little clay cakes are made, they are then dried then baked and placed in the Deeg. The odor is a very sweet mixture where the woody and oriental note of the sandalwood is complemented by an earthly smell. Many inhabitants of Kannauj like this smell because it reminds them of the smell of wet earth after the monsoon.

Cakes of clay are dried in a neighboring village.

Thanks, SS for sharing.

Originally posted by: gardes

Thanks, SS for sharing.

I too had read something similar on internet in the travel section.

My pleasure Gardes.
The set was what attracted me to this show first.
Guddu, RJ & Amma grew on me later .

Thanks so much for the enlightening topic!

Lovely Post Simran and the pictures did the wonders too. I think you should give some information on travel and accomodation as well since you were there😊.
azuria

Originally posted by: azuria

Lovely Post Simran and the pictures did the wonders too. I think you should give some information on travel and accomodation as well since you were there😊.
azuria

Thanks Az.
I wish I could .
But I traveled there in my astral body & didn't need any accommodation.😆
This is not from my blog.

I am game if they want to send me there for promos.
I'll try to find out the BMB & push him into the ganges on behalf of forumers.

Lovely post Simran. I love how you so elegantly reminded us here of physical labor and what is required in the making of a product. Here I can see the worker's relationship to the earth, the product, the people. There is a one-to-one between humanity and production. This of course hardly exists anymore. The fact that a worker's sweat imbues the product exemplifies the connection between man and his work.

Historically the "lower" in class that one is, the more you work with your hands and are closer to the earth and product.

I have always liked the class and work dynamics that are in this soap. While Runjhun is by birth one class, because of the way that she is treated she is almost part of a servant class. But she switches. She goes from ordering servants to polishing shoes.

Guddu is a class mystery too. We see that he straddles different classes. He is outside society as a goon, but also a King. He seems to come from an upper middle class family and abhors physical work. As with the mantra reading and manners it appears that he has been brought up not to be a gunda. He fears work because it makes him "lower" to others

He loves to give orders and make others work. How many times has he told a customer, that he is not a servant and he will not serve them. The only person who has made him work is RJ: for the IM center, around the house, etc

When you write about the physical work that the perfume industry requires, I am reminded of the ways in which Runjhun approaches her work. Whether she is cooking, or cleaning there is a beautiful method here. CV's know this as they often play music while she works and therefore romanticizing her work and labor. She is close to the earth when she works. I love how she grinds chili peppers or grinds the flower petals. Work is for her not a chore but a way for her to provide for her family. She elevates herself through her work. No one watching he work would ever say that she works as a servant for the family, but instead that she works for herself.

Guddu often makes fun of her working in the early episodes. But it was clear that he watched her. The Tere Masti video again refers to the fact that he fell in love with the way that she approaches her work. And that Runjhun turns working with the earth into a form of not just labor, but art. It is the way that she created art out of the everyday that G. finds so mesmerizing.

The fact that Guddu always watches her makes it sensible that when he wants to enter society via the IM center, he asks her to teach him how to work. It is not that RJ knows how to sell phones, she knows how to work with dignity. Guddu we have always said inside craves the order of domesticity, regularity and regular society. Runjhun arranges her world, whatever little that she can through work.

So thank you for the pics and lovely narrative

Originally posted by: jpalagrawal

Lovely post Simran. I love how you so elegantly reminded us here of physical labor and what is required in the making of a product. Here I can see the worker's relationship to the earth, the product, the people. There is a one-to-one between humanity and production. This of course hardly exists anymore. The fact that a worker's sweat imbues the product exemplifies the connection between man and his work.

Historically the "lower" in class that one is, the more you work with your hands and are closer to the earth and product.

I have always liked the class and work dynamics that are in this soap. While Runjhun is by birth one class, because of the way that she is treated she is almost part of a servant class. But she switches. She goes from ordering servants to polishing shoes.

Guddu is a class mystery too. We see that he straddles different classes. He is outside society as a goon, but also a King. He seems to come from an upper middle class family and abhors physical work. As with the mantra reading and manners it appears that he has been brought up not to be a gunda. He fears work because it makes him "lower" to others

He loves to give orders and make others work. How many times has he told a customer, that he is not a servant and he will not serve them. The only person who has made him work is RJ: for the IM center, around the house, etc

When you write about the physical work that the perfume industry requires, I am reminded of the ways in which Runjhun approaches her work. Whether she is cooking, or cleaning there is a beautiful method here. CV's know this as they often play music while she works and therefore romanticizing her work and labor. She is close to the earth when she works. I love how she grinds chili peppers or grinds the flower petals. Work is for her not a chore but a way for her to provide for her family. She elevates herself through her work. No one watching he work would ever say that she works as a servant for the family, but instead that she works for herself.

Guddu often makes fun of her working in the early episodes. But it was clear that he watched her. The Tere Masti video again refers to the fact that he fell in love with the way that she approaches her work. And that Runjhun turns working with the earth into a form of not just labor, but art. It is the way that she created art out of the everyday that G. finds so mesmerizing.

The fact that Guddu always watches her makes it sensible that when he wants to enter society via the IM center, he asks her to teach him how to work. It is not that RJ knows how to sell phones, she knows how to work with dignity. Guddu we have always said inside craves the order of domesticity, regularity and regular society. Runjhun arranges her world, whatever little that she can through work.

So thank you for the pics and lovely narrative

Thanks JP.
BTW I just posted the link, I wish I did something as interesting as this for a living. This is by a french student on a scholarship, traveling to rural places of Southern China, India, New Caledonia, Madagascar and Egypt to learn perfumery.

I better go and edit this & make it clear before getting sued.

You are spot on by bringing the connection to earth. That's the feeling I got first time when i saw this show, "earthy" and real.As far as establishing a place to tell a story these guys have done a great job.
The other day I saw a contestant from Kannauj on a reality show and asked somebody "this place is real? ", I got a spiel on Indian history with Rani Samykta and others.
I mentioned in Aginaya's post on why you like BBAT.
These jobs are never shown before.Like Billoo owning rickshaws etc.
Class and to some extent caste too are in play, tho' I don't understand the exact caste dynamics with sur names here.

@Simran, thank you very much for sharing this information with us and yes BBAT set designers deserve our appreciation for being so authentic!

@Jpalagrawal, I love the way you described the characters of Guddu and Runjhun trough their vision toward work.