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Lend me your ears, please
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ENT specialists are aplenty and ear buds too have been for around for quite some time but there is no stopping those who simply love to get their ears cleaned by the traditional ear-cleaners, says SANJAY AUSTA
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Ear Cleaner at work in New Delhi. Photo: Sandeep Saxena.
BEFORE THE arrival of the ear buds in the Indian market, there was only one way to clean the ear - go to the traditional ear-cleaners. They would not only extract the sticky layers of grime clogging the auditory canal but also provide immense pleasure in doing so. Little wonder, then, that the Indian royalty down the ages considered it a weekly treat to have their ears cleaned and oiled. The ear-cleaners, along with the barber, found a special trust with the Emperors for they were the only ones who could twitch the King's ears and live to tell the tale! Proofs of their services to the Moghul Emperors can be found in the literature and legend of the day.
Today, despite the ear buds and the advise of ENT specialists, people still seek out these ear-cleaners, making ear-cleaning one of the oldest professions on the Delhi streets. It is a job handed down from father to son through generations. Ask any ear-cleaner and he will say all his ancestors have been ear-cleaners. "I learnt the art from my father and my father from his father. We have done nothing else. This has always been our family business," says 25-year-old Mohammed Mukhtiar, who hawks his unique service outside a cinema hall in Chandni Chowk.
The traditional ear-cleaners in Delhi belong to Moradabad. Like their forefathers, they come to the bigger cities looking for clients. In Delhi the ear-cleaners find their patrons in Chandni Chowk, Connaught Place, G.B. Road and outside cinema halls and railway stations. They have not entirely lost favour with the educated elite, who despite access to Johnson's buds, still like to get their ears probed by the traditional tools. It is rather easy to spot the ear-cleaners, thanks to their peculiar headgear and their small shoulder bag that holds their ear-cleaning paraphernalia. They don a red scull cap with few cleaning instruments jutting out from under the rim. They solicit by sidling close to passers-by and announcing their trade. If anyone agrees, the ear-cleaners take him or her to a quiet spot and get down to work.
"It is an intricate job and not everyone can do it. We can do it as it is in our blood," says Nassir Hussain, a 35-year-old ear-cleaner who has been cleaning ears since he was 15. All ear cleaners have five basic cleaning tools made by them on their own. They are thin and spindly and made of steel. One end of the instrument is wrapped in a small wad of cotton and inserted into the ear. The ear-cleaner rotates his instrument in the ear for a while and withdraws, removing the wax. His next task is oiling the ears with mustard oil and the job is done. In more complicated cases, for instance, when a foreign body has to be extricated from the ear, the cleaner has a special tool with a tiny hook at one end. And it is in such cases that the ear cleaners' services are most sought.
"The doctors can never take out objects from ears as successfully as we can," says Hussain. He narrates an incident when doctors failed to remove a grain of wheat from a patient's ear. "The doctors only managed to push the grain further into the ear. It took me only a minute to take it out," he claims. The doctors on the other hand warn against getting their ears cleaned by these ear-cleaners. Rajiv Puri, Senior Consultant Apollo Hospital says that ears have a self-cleaning process and there is no need to clean them. "Inserting objects can pose a risk to the ear-drum, and other delicate parts of the ear," he says.
But those who love to get their ears cleaned turn a deaf ear to the doctors' advice to savour the pleasure of the traditional ear cleaning.
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