Economic downturn: Teen Hatti florists fight their ‘Queen of the Night’ handcuffs

Event managers say they pay them “just right”.

KARACHI:

Huge tubs of roses, sunshine-coloured marigolds and sweet-smelling tuberoses - the flower shops at Teen Hatti are breezy with colour and activity that mask the economic fetters of their florists.

Thirty-five-year-old Raja says his family makes fun of him for having chosen a “woman’s profession”, that is, decorating stages and wedding halls with kaleidoscopic flowers. But he doesn’t care because this is the only work he knows and he enjoys it. He does care, however, about the economic downturn in the flower business that has been brought along by professional event managers.

The florists at Teen Hatti complain that even though they are hired by event managers and made to work long hours, they are never given the market price for their labour. They visit the managers’ homes and offices but at the end of the day, they return with a tiny part of the total profits made.

The flower market at Teen Hatti is one of the oldest ones in Karachi and every day, thousands of blossoms are sent across the city for weddings, birthdays, Quran Khwanis and funerals.

The violence in the city might have affected most businesses but this fragrant market is buzzing every day. One Suzuki pickup after another zooms in, is filled to the brim with plastic and gunny bags of flowers and sent off.

Raja explains that low profit is a problem for everyone in this business. “We buy flowers for Rs25 per kilogramme and at times we even have to arrange for the truck [to transport flowers] and other decorations by ourselves,” he says. “But even then, the event managers are always haggling with us to cut our prices.”

Decorating a stage costs around Rs12,000 to Rs15,000 if it is just an “average” stage. For a fancier piece, the cost could range from Rs20,000 to Rs25,000.

Getting their due fee is a routine battle. “If I ask for Rs10,000 for my labour, I’m asked to come after a day and to call before coming. It goes on and on until I’m tired of visiting offices every day,” he says, deftly sewing flowers together along a string. At the end of the bargaining, Raja says he is paid a meagre Rs5,000. But the managers who dish out half of the asking price are still the better ones. There have been times when Raja has decorated wedding halls for “almost free” and managed to make only Rs500.

Rao Babar Anjum, who has been working at the Teen Hatti flower market for the past 35 years, nods in agreement. “This kind of treatment is the norm now. Some of us stopped working with people who treat us like this but others have no choice because they are just too poor.”

Event managers fend off accusations

Tahir Chauhan is an event manager for Lavish at Tariq Road and hires most of his decorators from Teen Hatti. He says event managers are not the “monsters” Raja has made them out to be. They charge events according to the number of people who attend. On average, they charge Rs200 per head and earn around Rs100,000 per event.

They have a limited budget and most of the money is used to arrange for food, tables and stage, etc. The budget for flowers is around Rs20,000, which is also the market price for flower arrangements at these events. Chauhan feels, however, that since event managers have to look after everything, they deserve a higher commission. “Since we have to save something for ourselves, we do haggle with the florists and get them to charge less than Rs20,000.” Another event manager, Frieha Altaf, says that there is no question of her cheating florists out of money “as most of the flowers she uses are imported or bought from specific florists”.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th,  2011.