India's professional ear cleaners still find work
Sheikh Mohammed, 25, is one of Bombay’s battalion of professional ear cleaners – a group easily identifiable by their pink or orange turbans.
For 10 rupees (12 pence), one can have one’s ears expertly probed by a man wielding a tiny swab of cotton wool on a fine wire rod.
The operation takes about ten minutes (its depends on how waxy your ears are, Mr Mohammed says) and is a common sight on city streets.
Mr Mohammed, the latest in a long line of ear cleaners, insists that trade “is very, very good ... all types of people like to have clean ears”.
He makes a respectable 300 rupees (£3.50) a day but he is sure that his sons will not carry on the business.
“They are in school. They are becoming educated”, he says. “Perhaps they will do an MBA”.
For 10 rupees (12 pence), one can have one’s ears expertly probed by a man wielding a tiny swab of cotton wool on a fine wire rod.
The operation takes about ten minutes (its depends on how waxy your ears are, Mr Mohammed says) and is a common sight on city streets.
Mr Mohammed, the latest in a long line of ear cleaners, insists that trade “is very, very good ... all types of people like to have clean ears”.
He makes a respectable 300 rupees (£3.50) a day but he is sure that his sons will not carry on the business.
“They are in school. They are becoming educated”, he says. “Perhaps they will do an MBA”.
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