15 May,2011 07:56 AM IST | | Yolande D'Mello
When we are nowhere close to the Middle Ages, why is a father-son team from Santacruz producing iron battle gloves and khukris?
There are large bundles of paper held under the weight of sword tips, iron battle gloves peeping out from a cushion, and right ahead, lining the windowsill, are metal headgears and battle maces that look good enough to bludgeon someone's head. No, Hagar The Horrible has not teleported himself into the future, and neither is it the set of a Russell Crowe flick.
It is, in fact, a house in Santacruz that also doubles up as Shaabas Replicas. Sharouk Bandukwalla's store trades in imitation swords, shields, body armour, helmets and other collectibles. The replicas are made from carbon steel, wood and leather, and most of them are as heavy as real weapons.
Bandukwalla works with craftsmen from north India, and the products are exported to Germany, South Africa, Australia and the UK. Theatre groups, film crews and national parades tend to order them for representational purposes in re-enactments of old battles. For instance, the Nigerian army recently placed a sizeable order for swords that they used in a traditional parade.u00a0
The Lion Heart Sword; Full body Scottish armour; Viking horned
helmet; Roman officer's helmet; Alexander's mace; Sharouk and
Shabbir Bandukwalla
But Shaabas Replicas wasn't exactly Bandukwalla's idea alone. His father Shabbir Bandukwalla was the proprietor of Bombay Armoury, a store that imported guns when shikar was still legal in the British Raj. He sold sporting guns and rifles imported from UK and USA, catering mostly to British and ruling Princely states. "Rajas, maharajas, nawabs and zamindars loved hunting. All that changed after 1947 whenu00a0 shikar was abolished," says Shabbir, now, an old and lean man.
"We had no option but to shut shop." Bandukwalla studied Physics in college and tried his hand at various odd jobs before deciding to carry on the family trade, after adding a few innovations. The Bandukwallas have been based in Mumbai for the last two generations, but are originally natives of Mundra, a town in the Kutch district of Gujarat. "It's a family craft, so the knowledge was passed down over generations," says Shabbir. Now of course, the family deals purely in replicas. To facilitate this change, seven years ago, the company changed its name from Bombay Armoury to Shaabas Replicas.
Bandukwalla is rigorous about his work. "Clients share a sketch with us to explain the idea, after which we send them a miniature of the piece for approval. Only then do we start production." To get his pieces correct, Bandukwalla researches the history and cultural differences of various products. A minimum of 300 pieces need to be ordered, which the store takes about four months to deliver.
Some of Bandukwalla's previous work includes a samurai sword with an intricate handle, a sabre that can also open champagne bottles, khukris (traditional Nepali knives) with colourful handles, a Robin Hood sword with imitation diamond studs and a full body armour suit that weighs about 30 kg, and can be dismantled into eight pieces.u00a0
Log on to www.replicaarms.net/ company-profile.htm
