Losing Attar

Jigyasa Mishra travels to Kannauj to explore how our changing world has decimated the city’s centuries old attar industry. Kannauj has been distilling flowers to make attar since the time of the Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1605. But its popularity is waning, as consumers move toward cheaper synthetic fragrances. Climate change is also having significant effects on the flowers that go into making attar .

A Whistledown Production.