Fatima Bi

In Bidar there is a saying: if your father is a craftsman, your hands already know the work before your mind does. I grew up in a house that smelled of metal shavings and flux. My father's workshop was three steps from the kitchen. I would sit under the workbench as a child and watch chips of zinc-copper alloy fall around me like strange snow. I was not supposed to touch the tools. I touched them constantly.

Bidriware has always been men's work. When I wanted to learn properly — not just watch — my father's colleagues refused to teach me. One of them told my father that a woman working metal would bring bad luck to the workshop. I taught myself from watching, from stolen hours in the early morning before anyone woke. It took eight years before anyone acknowledged I was good. It took another five before they admitted I was better.

The alloy we cast is ninety percent zinc, ten percent copper. After casting and filing, we carve intricate patterns by hand — a single bowl might take four days of carving alone. Then the silver wire is hammered into the grooves. Then the piece is treated with a paste of ammonium chloride and soil from Bidar Fort — the only soil in the world that blackens this specific alloy. The contrast of bright silver against matte black is not a design choice. It is chemistry, history, and this particular piece of earth.

Bidriware has a GI tag. It should be protected. But cheap imitations made with paint instead of silver inlay are sold everywhere, even in Bidar itself. I spend a part of every year speaking to government officials, to craft councils, to anyone who will listen. My hands are getting older. The carving takes longer now. But I will not stop until I have trained enough young people that this craft cannot die when I do.