Kannauj - महक इतनी कि क़स्बे की नालियाँ भी ख़ुशबू बिखेरती हैं !

Kannauj - महक इतनी कि क़स्बे की नालियाँ भी ख़ुशबू बिखेरती हैं !

Fine art of making perfumes in Kannauj  has its traces to the time of Emperor Harsh . 

This  small town in Uttar Pradesh, had mastered the art of capturing the delicate smell of the fresh rain on dry soil into a perfume many years back. It was long before two Australian mineralogists, Isabel Joy Bear and Richard Grenfell Thomas, discovered the chemistry behind the heady smell and name it ‘petrichor’. It is known as ‘mitti-attar’, it is one of the most sought-after perfumes of Kannauj.

Not far away from Kanpur once the industrial hub of entire north India, this small town Kannauj looks like any other dusty town of Uttar Pradesh. Little remains of the once glorious city-state that traces its antiquity to the days of the Mahabharata and which rose to its greatest height as the capital of Emperor Harsha (590 to 647 CE) when it was called Kanyakubja. 

As you walk through the streets of the old town, you cannot miss the fragrant note in the air; even the sludge flowing through the roadside drains sometimes reminds you of a floral note ! That is because a large number of families in the town are engaged, for generations, in the making of ‘attar’ or natural fragrant oils and extracts. Many people do not know but one of closely guarded secret of French perfumery is essential oils imported from this shanty town. 

What makes Kannauj’s attar-making industry even more interesting despite the passage of time it  still follows the traditional method, a highly labour-intensive and time-consuming hydro-distillation process, called ‘deg bhapka’.

Ingredients used here are different kinds of flowers - mainly rose, kewra, chameli, bela, marigold, jasmine, lavender, from natural products such as vetiver or khus , and herbs/ spices -cardamom, cloves, saffron, juniper berry, jatamansi, etc. Usually, the flowers are plucked at dawn so that they retain the best fragrance. The most coveted and popular attar from Kannauj is the ‘shamama’, made from a co-distillation of different herbs and spices. There are several families who make the shamama but each has its own secret recipe, which is a strongly guarded secret.

After a consistent effort of many years, in 2014, Kannauj Attars finally got GI-tagged. In case you are wondering, a GI tag is given to a product to protect its region of origin which plays a big role in the history of the product. But even after that, Kannauj perfumes aren’t doing as great as one would have hoped as the skill needed for marketing do not match as  perfected in attar making here. The business owners so far only focused on the B2B aspect and didn’t upgrade their skill to create their own brands to sell directly to the consumer , they probably fail to understand that in case they go directly to consumers their margins will be very very high. It’s also very unfortunate that a lot of these people have learnt manufacturing skills from their forefathers, now their children are not very keen to join . In many families of traditional perfume makers, this is probably the  last generation well-versed in this craft. The industry also has another big challenge of upgrading technology and skills , nothing big has happened in this area so far. Kannauj city  is torn between two extremes – tradition and modernisation, craft and technology.

Another big challenge is supply of essential organic material such as sandalwood, jasmine, khus , rose and spikenard that has so far  form the base of perfumery in Kannauj . Sadly,  we have failed to preserve both natural resources and skill, whether it's via lack of policies or poor customer interest. Take the case of sandalwood, which is almost impossible to source now. Earlier there were a few distillers of sandalwood, when it used to come from Veerappan but after he was killed, there are barely any sources. 

The other natural resource that is rapidly dwindling is of spikenard or jatamansi, a precious ingredient used in perfumery and also as a sedative in Ayurveda. About 60-70% of reserves of these herbs dwindled in the Upper Himalayas mainly  because it hasn’t been preserved properly. 

It is also true that Kannauj's perfumes, the last decade or so has seen a sharp fall in the quality of pure attars and essences, as the increased demand for synthetics has elbowed out traditional players. 

All perfumed tobacco and gutkas , many organic soaps, shampoos etc uses the essential oils extracted here. Range of industries using these essential oils is far and wide. And आम के आम गुठली के दाम saying is 100%  applicable to Kannauj perfume industry even the distillate is not wasted but used for making agarbatti or incense sticks.

If you will ask what is the difference between Atar produced in Kannauj and the French perfumes , atar is oily so leaves its oily mark and perfumes in France have soluable base which do not permit any mark.