For the BBC World Service, this is Losing Attar.

My name is Rajuuwah and I have been farming flowers for the past 13 years. Before that I used to work somewhere else.

But after the demise of my father, I took over farming.

What do you harvest?

Jessman, Hina, Rose.

I also have a rose nursery.

Raju's family have lived in the northern Indian city of Ganaj

for many generations.

Situated by the banks of the Ganges, it is an ideal location to grow

flowers and Raju learned how to farm roses, jasmin and Marigold from his father. Like generations before him, once the flowers have grown and been plucked,

Raju sells them to the local perfume makers who turned them into different types of essential oil known as

Atter. Atter has been an integral part of life in Knodge for centuries. It is sometimes said that even the city's

alleyways and seers smell of distinctive fragrances. But for farmers like Raju, it is a way of life that is under threat.

Rising temperatures and unpredictable seasons are making harvesting the flowers needed to make Atter harder than ever.

There has been a lot of loss due to early rainfall.

Rain in March is not good.

It destroys the leaves of plants and ruins everything. My name is Jigia Samishra. I'm a journalist who discovered how Kanoge was losing Atter after the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was the time when the farmers and small-scale perfumers and retailers especially were facing the brunt of a national lockdown resulting

into the downfall of Atter market.

I've been reporting from Kannaj to hear more about why traditional Atter cultivation may become a thing of the past,

and talking to people fighting to keep it alive. This is the old city area of Karnoz. In this market there are 29 or perfume manufacturers and 40,000 manufacturers in our regular

contact. Big or small, you will find a distillery in almost every household.

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