In Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh and a city renowned for its Nawabi heritage and its craftspeople, Azhar Hussain, 55, still sits at the workbench where he has spent years crafting ornamental footwear. His tools remain, but his customers do not. Silver prices have soared over the past year, sharply eroding demand for his wares.
His small workshop sits beside Chowk Bazaar, one of the oldest and busiest markets in Old Lucknow, long a wedding-shopping hub famous for silver jewellery and handicrafts.
For three decades, Hussain has been one of the market's most sought-after artisans, specialising in a distinctive silver slip-on shoe known locally as nagra.
The process begins by cutting a thin sheet of silver into the shape of a nagra, then sketching floral motifs onto the metal. Hussain then places the silver sheet on hot lac — a soft natural resin that cushions the metal — and uses a hammer and engraving tools to tap each delicate line into place. He goes on to bend the silver around a furma (a foot-shaped mould) before mounting it on a sole made of cardboard, rubber and velvet, soldering the parts together and polishing the finished pair. Artisans have made silver nagra this way since the 1600s.
The ornamental shoes were originally made for the Nawabs — the Muslim rulers of the erstwhile kingdom of Awadh — to wear daily.
"Silver nagra was once the most important part of a nawab's attire," said Nawab Masud Abdullah, 68, an eighth-generation descendant of Nawab Muhammad Ali Shah, the ninth Nawab of Awadh, who ruled from 1837 until his death in 1842. "They were not just footwear; they expressed our culture and heritage."
Once reserved for the Nawabs, silver nagra has become a cherished wedding tradition for more than a century, embraced by both middle- and upper-class families in Lucknow.
"Our ancestors wore silver nagra every day. Later, they were kept for festivals and finally for special occasions," Abdullah explained. "The good thing is that the tradition spread beyond Nawabi circles. People, especially brides across Lucknow, made it their own, and now a bride is considered incomplete without nagra."
Hussain and his artisan family have watched that shift firsthand. "Earlier, only Nawabs could afford these shoes because they symbolised wealth, power and status," he said. "But over the past seven or eight decades, they have become popular with middle-class and wealthy families alike, especially for weddings and special occasions."
There are two types of silver nagra — the open-toe chappal and the closed-toe juti — and customers can choose from a range of patterns, embellishments and designs.
