Echoes Beneath A Badminton Boom: The Last Shuttlecocks Of Jadurberia

Shuttlecock-madras-courier
Representational image: Public domain.
The shuttlecock is a humble object. It is weightless, transient, and easily broken. But in Jadurberia, it was once a livelihood, a lifeline, a link to the larger world.

Just forty-two kilometres from Kolkata, in the fading quiet of West Bengal’s Howrah district, lies Jadurberia, a village that once pulsed with a quiet purpose. Years ago, the days were measured by the rhythm of feather and cork, the soft scrape of scissors, and the slow, careful rotation of a shuttlecock under a skilled hand. For almost a century, this village supplied the lifeblood of Indian badminton: handcrafted shuttlecocks that flew, unseen and unacknowledged, across the courts of the nation.

Today, the industry that sustained Jadurberia is barely a shadow of what it once was. Where hundreds of workshops once operated, only a few cling on, struggling to survive. The air that once carried the scent of dyed feathers and wood glue now hangs heavy with silence and a sense of displacement. The world has changed. The game has moved on. But in Jadurberia, the ghosts of craftsmanship linger.



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