“Chhatri theek karva lo!": Get your umbrella repaired

From TheStatesman.com comes a story of what we are missing in our throwaway society--the itinerant umbrella repairman who comes out during rainy season "on his rickety old bicycle" and calls out loudly, “Chhatri theek karva lo! (Get your umbrella repaired).”:

The other day when I heard his call, I came out of my house with two defective umbrellas needing his attention, and raised my arm to stop him as he was passing by our door.

“Two ribs of this one are broken,” I said, as he dismounted and came towards me, “and the other one does not open.”

He examined both umbrellas minutely, did some quick mental arithmetic, and then said, “That will be Rs 50.” Somewhat reluctantly I gave him the signal to go ahead, for Rs 50 seemed to me a little too much for this fiddling little job. But, then, you don’t find menders of umbrellas at every street corner. They are rare seasonal birds. If you let one go past your door because of a niggling little difference between what he demands and what you are ready to pay for repairing your umbrella, it may take you days, nay, even weeks before you are lucky enough to sight another mender of umbrellas.

Doing a little searching, I found at least one image showing that the umbrella repairman wasn't unknown in the West, too, once upon a time. . . . and, maybe more recently, too. Here is one of a few stories about Gilbert Center:

Gilbert's father had been an umbrella maker who emigrated from Poland in the 1920's and opened a store on Essex Street on the Lower East Side. Gilbert had run his own store for many years after his father retired. The store had since gone out of business and, when I found him, he was doing freelance umbrella repair. A kind, considerate, gentle man in his mid 70’s, Mr. Center came to my office in Midtown and picked up my umbrella which he slid it into a special sleeve to protect it in transit. We had a chat about what I needed and he patiently answered my questions about the process he'd use to replace the fabric and some of the specialized equipment he had in his shop at home. I was surprised when he told me he had a steady stream of customers for which he was doing umbrella repair. But I guess this made sense considering he was the only person I could find who maintained umbrellas in the whole of North America. After a few e-mails updating me on the status of my repair (yes, Gilbert had also entered the digital age) Gilbert personally delivered the umbrella to me in good form. The repair was expensive but he was so pleasant to deal with that I tipped him an extra $20 (if for no other reason than to help support a dying art). My repaired umbrella was better than ever. I had Gilbert take care of a couple more umbrellas over the years. His work was always outstanding. I'm not sure how long he'll be at work maintaining hand-made, top shelf umbrellas. But I consider myself lucky to have met one of the last craftsmen from a time when things had more importance, longevity and grace.