Hyderabad: Sewiyan makers in city crestfallen

Even though the machine-made sewiyan has stormed the market in the recent years, people's preferences have kept the traditional hand-made sewiyan business alive. Families of these sewiyan makers are found only in a few parts of the city including Yakutpura and Chaderghat

Hyderabad: With usually Ramadan around the corner, Hyderabad witnesses a spate of yummy dishes to delight the devout as well as connoisseurs from all faiths. Among such delicious dishes is a must-have dessert – Sheer Khorma i.e. a sweet milk pudding of vermicelli (sewiyan) liberally dosed with dry fruits.

Sewiyan remains the most important ingredient of Eid-ul-Fitr's special dessert 'Sheer khorma', but this year given the changed scenario following lockdown to arrest the spread of Covid-19, the demand for this vermicelli even amongst poor and lower middleclass appears to be on the wane.

Despite hardships, traditional vermicelli (sewiyan) makers were able to produce about a quarter of what they usually make every year, for this Ramzan. However, they are at a loss how to market it, owing to logistic problems in lockdown. Every year, they begin preparations early on to make some money during the festival.

According to Sameer Khan, a sewiyan maker, this lockdown hit hard their traditional business and like most of the households dependent on small businesses, they are struggling to eke out a living, save along doing some business. "Amidst lockdown we couldn't receive the orders of sewiyan and now hardly 15 kg to 20 kg sewiyan per day are being prepared," he said. "Earlier, we used to receive orders not only from other districts of Telangana, but also from states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. But now only orders from city are trickling in," he added.

Khan said this business was started by his grandfather around 65 years ago and now three siblings are running it. "All these years, our family did not feel like destitutes and Ramzan had always brought good business for us," he recalled. Even though the machine-made sewiyan has stormed the market in the recent years, people's preferences have kept the traditional hand-made sewiyan business alive. Families of these sewiyan makers are found only in a few parts of the city including Yakutpura and Chaderghat.