4. Occupation.
The social customs of the Darzis present no features of special interest and resemble those of the lower castes in their locality. They rank below the cultivating castes, and Brāhmans will not take water from their hands. Though not often employed by the Hindu villager the Darzi is to Europeans one of the best known of all castes. He is on the whole a capable workman and especially good at copying from a pattern. His proficiency in this respect attracted notice so long ago as 1689, as shown in an interesting quotation in the Bombay Gazetteer referring to the tailors of Surat:[8] “The tailors here fashion clothes for the Europeans, either men or women, according to every mode that prevails, and fit up the commodes and towering head-dresses for the women with as much skill as if they had been an Indian fashion, or themselves had been apprenticed at the Royal Exchange. (The commode was a wire structure to raise the cap and hair.)” Since then the Darzi has no doubt copied in turn all the changes of English fashions. He is a familiar figure in the veranda of the houses of Europeans, and his idiosyncrasies have been delightfully described by Eha in Behind the Bungalow. His needles and pins are stuck into the folds of his turban, and Eha says that he is bandy-legged because of the position in which he squats on his feet while sewing. In Gujarāt the tailor is often employed in native households. “Though even in well-to-do families,” Mr. Bhimbhai Kirpāram writes,[9] “women sew their bodices and young children’s clothes for everyday wear, every family has its own tailor. As a rule tailors sew in their own houses, and in the tailor’s shop may be seen workmen squatting in rows on a palm-leaf mat or on cotton-stuffed quilts. The wives and sons’ wives of the head of the establishment sit and work in the shop along with the men. Their busy time is during the marriage season from November to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not infrequently a member of the village establishment. During the rains, the tailor’s slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage, holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujarāt, in the absence of Brāhmans, a Darzi officiates at Bhāwad marriages, and in some Brāhman marriages a Darzi is called with some ceremony to sew a bodice for the bride. On the other hand, in the Pānch Mahals and Rewa Kantha, besides tailoring Darzis blow trumpets at marriage and other processions and hold so low a position that even Dhedas object to eat their food.” It seems clear that in Gujarāt the Darzi caste is of older standing than in northern India, and it is possible that the art of sewing may have been acquired through the sea trade which was carried on between the western coast and Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Here the Darzi has become a village menial, which he is not recorded as being in any other part of India.