Lahore:
Abdul Majeed, sitting on the banks of the Ravi River, brightens the wood and refreshes the echo of the past, a past that is now only in memories, recently monsoon rains raised a temporary wave of life in the narrator.
80 -Year -Year, Abdul Majeed is still engaged in making a wooden boat with the same storyteller.
He said that he started learning this skill at the age of just 10, his first boat was for the government college Lahore, which cost only 250 rupees at that time and if the same boat is made today, its price has reached 8 to 10 lakh rupees.
Abdul Majid says that there was a time when the narrator was on his way, there were many boats clubs in Lahore, for which he regularly made boats, but over time the boats clubs closed and their work was rejected.
He said that India has stopped the river water from above, so the beauty and life of the narrator fell like the beauty and life, now the river breathes only during the monsoon days.
Abdul Majid’s voice is also proud and bitter, saying that he has built boats for many famous personalities, Mumtaz Bhutto, Ghulam Mustafa Khar and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s father Mian Muhammad Sharif lived among his customers and Mian Sharif loved him.
The hardness of time has not only banned the job, but also their handicraft resources, the first cedar wood was used, but now it has reached 14 to 16 thousand rupees per foot, which is why they now use pine and silk wood which is relatively inexpensive.
He said that the cost of capacity of seven to eight people has now reached about 8 lakh rupees, but the boats have not been able to live in Ravi’s contaminated water.
According to Abdul Majeed, he got this work after three years, he is unhappy why he should now teach this skill to anyone. When they are unemployed, and who would want to learn this art? Neither the river remained the same, nor the city nor the buyer.
It was raining, then the water came into the river, the people around them turned to the narrator for a walk, the old and faulty boats were repaired, the activity returned for a few days, returned to Ronak, but Abdul Majeed knows that the happiness is on time and when the rain stops, the water will be silent again.
These few weeks of life can also have the last boats made by Abdul Majid, every shock for wood that comes out of their hands, the last heartbeat of a tradition, a skilled, a pledge and a craftsman are slowly leaving the river, and they are anytime stories.
