A Divine Labour Ward

Gods were created by men. So say some. I have no quarrel with anyone claiming that or the contrary.
But it's always a privilege to get to watch "Gods" being created by men.
In Swamimalai.

One of the Six Holy Forts ( Padai Veedu in Tamil) of Lord Murugan, Swamimalai is a small town buzzing around an ancient temple dedicated to the Divine Child known here as His Father's Preceptor ( Swami-nathan or Thagappan-swami).

The town is equally well known for its bronzes. A handful of workshops here turn out exquisite bronze and Panchaloha ( 5 Metal Alloy) artefacts using processes that have remained unchanged for ages . The art of bronze casting here was kept exclusively within a small knot of artisan-families who trace their lineage to the Divine Craftsman, Vishwakarma. But now, "outsiders" can also get training from them. There's also a government run school which takes in not more than 20 pupils for each course that runs two years.

The workshops where the sculptures are created are just rude sheds adjoining the humble homes of the craftsmen. Cruising through narrow alleys, stepping across puddles of mud and uncleared garbage, we arrive at the frontyard of a bronzecaster who has agreed to give us a tutorial about his ancient art. We see odd looking lumps of half dried clay laid out on straw mats and gunnybags. And browsing on some stalks of grain piled on the front yard are two fat black goats.

Shooing them away with a smart thwack of his hand towel, the smith conducts us inside a dark but spacious workroom. Sacks, cartons and waste material are strewn about. Gaudy calender pictures of deities adorn the pock marked, uneven walls. Unfinished products are stacked against an old teakwood almirah. Five workmen are busy finishing the finer details on two huge bronze figures , booked for shipment to an overseas customer.

The method used for making the sculptures here is the very ancient Lost Wax Process ; or Cire Perdue, as it is called in High Art circles. Its vedic name is "Madhuchistta Vidhana" .
The composition of the wax, the clay and the metal have remained unchanged since hoary times ; so also the implements..........it gives me a thrill of wonder and amazement to be reminded by him that the famous 5000year old "dancing girl" figurine of Mohenjo Daro was also sculpted by the very same process !


They still use the coconut-palm leaf ( Odi-olai) instead of the more convenient measuring tape for working out proportions. The first step is to make a palmleaf ribbon, exactly the length of the intended image. This leaf is folded over 12 or 124 times ( according to the complexity of the artefact to be produced) into equal units which are creased and marked on the ribbon. Units are called, according to the size, Talas, Angulas or Yavas. Proportions are worked out in multiples of these unit. The ratios handed down by ancient texts are religiously adhered to, in order to achieve the perfect, ideal, form.
Every craft project begins with a prayer, a shloka from Agni Purana, beseeching divine help in successful completion of the task.

The procedure sounds simple. The figure is fashioned out of wax, covered with a heavy layer of clay, fired and the melted wax is tapped off, leaving a mould inside the clay lump, into which molten metal is poured and cooled. Break the clay mould and Voila ! the God appears ! Both solid and hollow castings are made this way, the latter starting with a clay core that is later scrapped out.
The wax used for modelling is a mixture of beewax, tree resin and groundnut oil.

The clay comes from the bed and banks of River Kaveri . They swear by this incomparable clay because it is so fine that even a fingerprint can look like a vivid engraving,and its so strong and homogenous that it never cracks upon firing.

No modern kilns are used. Firing the clay mould and melting of the metal are both done on charcoal or coke fires lit in pits in the floor of the workshop.
A lot of pious rituals attend every step of the procedure, be it lighting the fire or breaking the mould or sculpting the eyes.
A major part of the metals ( Copper , Brass, Tin) used here comes from recycling discarded utensils, broken temple ware and automobile and industrial coil wire wastes. Metal is also recovered from the workshop floor itself , from the slag and the crust inside the melting crucibles. Nothing is wasted !

The mark of a fine craftsman is to deliver a finely detailed sculpture right upon breaking open the baked clay cast. The trick lies in controlling the temperature as well as the pace of the flow of the molten metal poured into the clay cast vacated by the melted wax . But this is exacting work and few today can do it with the perfection eulogised in historical works. Today, only the basic form is delivered from the cast and all details are hand chiselled later, on the metal form.


In addition to religious icons, a lot of decorative articles ( "show pieces" ) are also made where the sculptors can give their imagination a free run. But where images of gods are concerned, they adhere to the "lakshana" guidelines handed down the generations . These, when recounted by the sculptor, do sound so poetic ! The eyes are to be like neem leaves, the nose like sesame flower, neck like the whorls on a conch shell ; the torso of a male like the head of a cow, arms like a young elephant's trunk, knee like a crab, feet like fish...................No wonder the youthful, turbaned Rishabaruda, ( 1100 AD, standing in Thanjavur Museum ) , the Thiruvenkadu Ardhanariswara ( 11th Cent, standing in Chennai Museum ), and the 8 ft. Nataraja ( dated 9th Cent.,but deemed swayambu, dancing in Konerirajapuram temple) look so stunning and seductive !

Swamimalai, from being a pilgrimage centre, has blossomed into a Tourist Point attracting hordes of curious visitors eager to see the ancient processes of this wonderful craft. They always leave in awe and admiration...........and with a souvenir !

The latest attraction that has sprung up in Swamimalai is a lovely Heritage Home called Anandam which completes the "Time Machine" effect.

I remembered Swamimalai today (- hence this post ! -) as i gave the most favourite object in my collection , a Swamimalai bronze Shiva, a long due cleaning and polishing.(Below)
( Pics. of Workshop : by my father . Pics. in slide show : from postcards Pic. below: by daughter)

Road Rave

Just the other day, after yet another singularly joyless ride through what is most injudiciously called a Highway, i fondly remembered another road : Smooth as silk . Two laned. Well paved kerbs, road markings in reflective paint, unbroken lines of cats-eyes, orderly bus bays and pretty shelters. Emergency- call phone kiosks every 3 kms, round the clock security patrolling , quick and efficient toll plazas, beautiful flowerbeds at "view point" halts. Trauma care and towing services at ever-ready mode. Sections of the highway, straight as arrows, looking like airport runways at night. A wonderful beach running alongside, throughout. No, this is not in some videshi postcard. The road, named ECR Scenic Beachway, part of SH 49, is very much in our own dravidian soil. From Chennai to Cuddalore via Puducheri ( Pondicherry), along the Bay Of Bengal coastline.

We lived in Chennai at the time this East Coast Road was still new. One trip was all it took us to get besotted with it ! The enchantment was so bad that my son and i would drive along ECR every weekend with no destination in mind, just for the pleasure of driving on such a wonderful road.In the Republic of Perpetual PotHoles , here was a road that fairly tom-tommed: "Yes, We Can ".

The ECR was created in 1998 by linking and upgrading many existing village roads and started collecting toll from 2002, after improvement work on the 114Km. stretch (now called Scenic Beachway)was completed.

During our aimless drives, we sometimes got down here and there to see this or that. And there's plenty to see on that road. Some already existing before the appearance of ECR, others having mushroomed soon after . Here's a list of some places that impressed me ; in no particular order.

The Crocodile Bank and Herpetology Reasearch Center. This facility was started to save and propagate endangered Muggers ( marsh crocs), Gharial ( Gangetic crocs.) and Salt Water Crocs. in 1976 by Romulus Whitaker. Later, the bank included turtles,snakes and monitor lizards too. It now has a CrocBank for surplus eggs and young ones produced here, that are sold to breeding centres and zoos across the world. All creatures are housed in enclosures that closely resemble their natural habitat. While educating and spreading awareness about reptiles, the center also has some activities to attract visitors ( for a fee, ofcourse): You can get photographed with the young crocs. Watch puppet shows by village kids. Take a night safari. Watch venom being extracted. Or Feed the crocs. This last is something i have seen only once ; but it was enough to put me off that "Activity" for life. I know Crocodiles cannot live on soup and salad,they need to be fed rats and such other creatures. No quarrel there. But i just could not cope with the fact that throwing a live little wriggling mouse into a mugger's mouth was billed as a photo-op, some sort of amusement ,with people actually lining up eagerly for the tickets .I wish they had changed the menu to dead fish, so that it would've seemed less like a Roman bloodsport.

( mugger awaiting food)

Cholamandalam Artists Village: It is the largest Artists Commune in India. A beautiful little hamlet on the beach , the very location is enough to get creative juices flowing, where artists can abandon themselves to their muse, unpressurised by the demands of mundane life .It was started in 1966 by the renowned artist , KCS Panikker and it nurtured what is now known in the art world as The Madras Movement .(Famous Names like Adimoolam, SG Vasudev, Nandagopal, K.Ramanujam....) The central idea was for artists to make handicrafts for a living and pursue art in leisure, so that the commune functions as a self sufficiant co-operative unit. (They were the first to popularise Batik painting in India.) It started out as a avant garde , bohemian commune, the artists living in rustic dwellings close to nature in Injambakkam, far from city life, with their works of art ( painting, sculptures, installations) scattered all over. But today , the City has crept closer( with a Spencer's Supermart bang next to it). The romantic village has progressed into a prosaic township, there's a museum of contemporary art, guest houses etc. But it has not lost its soul. Yet.
a book about the commune

Kovalam ( Covelong): not to be confused with the Kovalam of Kerala. This is a small fishing village, once a port of the Nawabs of Carnatic. In 1746, the port was claimed by the French, only to be sacked and destroyed by Clive in 1752. The Dutch, who had wandered in India briefly, had left a fort here. Now 'Taj Fisherman's Cove', a starred beach resort, stands on the premises of that fallen fort. The beach is ideal for catamaran rides and offers wind surfing.
Once, while staying in that resort, i was astonished to find that a native fisherman , trying to sell visitors some pretty cowries, was fluent in French, German and Russian in addition to English, Hindi and native Tamil . And holding up his old cut off jeans was a fraying belt sporting the YSL logo ! I din't pry, but could make out that some of the wares he was showing the firangis were definitely not cowries...........

Dakshinachitra : a living museum for south indian culture. Old, disused traditional houses of different communities from the 4 southern states, have been translocated and restored in this beautiful setting amidst palm trees and green meadows. It is run as a non- profit community service organisation by the Madras Crafts Foundation to preserve and highlight forgotten cultural idioms in crafts, performing arts,food, music etc.The reception area is designed by the legendary Laurie Baker and bears his signature building techniques.
Each traditional house is a minor lesson in social history. We understand so much about the way of life of the past inhabitants by looking at the room arrangements , household things and implements . The all-wood house from Kerala has so much 'character' while the all-stone hutment from North Karnataka speaks volumes about the hardships the inhabitants endure.
Village craftsmen frequently hold demonstrations of their craft here- basketry, pottery, banglemaking,weaving etc. Traditionally attired old ladies are at hand to show their talents : Rangoli, kasuti embroidery, flower weaving, creating palm leaf decorations and other household arts that are dying out in larger cities.
My daughter once tried her hand at grinding flour in the traditional flat stone mill , with much help from an "aachi". Only to give up after just two (- huff-puff-) rounds ! Women needed to be strong as an ox to contend with kitchens and barns of yore !
( kanchipuram house courtyard)

Boat Houses : one at Muttukadu and one at Mudaliarkuppam : run by State Govt. they offer rowing, wind surfing, water skiing, and speedboat riding on the brilliant blue backwaters. But its more lovely to watch the boats than to actually ride in any.

Mayajaal : a nifty , sprawling , fully airconditioned indoor amusement park which draws youngsters from hot and humid Chennai, in droves. There's a bowling alley, arcade games, movie theatres, food court et al. Good for time pass.

Mahabalipuram : Deserves a 4 part Serial Post. Maybe sometime later.

VGP Universal Kingdom : the very first amusement Park in Tamil Nadu. Still growing and still going strong, inspite of half a dozen other such parks springing up along the same ECR. Comes with its own private beach. Brain child of the VGP Group (which popularised the concept of Instalment Patyments for consumer goods in India.) The vision was to bring a 'disneyland' to Indian kids. The famous, immobile Statue Man who stands at the entrance is a much loved ( and much pestered) icon. I have always wondered how much they pay him.
Attractions include any number of rides, a recreated Chozha Fort, sculptural fountains, an aquarium, a Jurassic Park, an animated dolls museum, food courts and toytrains. I like the 3 ft. long Family Dosa the beachside restaurant serves. Its fun to watch the posse of bearers carrying it to the table carefully.
Adventure Shows ( realistic recreation of movie stunts) from abroad are also invited to play here periodically. And ofcourse, there's always some movie shooting or the other going on.
No wonder the Kingdom is jam packed and bursting at its seams every weekend. Definitely a place to avoid on holidays if you wish to retain sanity !

Karneshwara Temple : Close to the Toll Plaza on the Puducheri side, within Pudukuppam village limits stands a beautiful pyramid, close to the sea, surrounded by open land spotted with saplings, oriented towards the magnetic north. It is a temple dedicated to Siva Nataraja. And the Karna who built it is Dr. Karan Singh, prince of Kashmir ,the most cultured and gracious MP we have ever had. Though there is an idol of Nataraja inside, no ritualistic worship is done as this temple was built solely for the purpose of Dhyana, bringing together the mysticism of the pyramid shape and the occult aspects of the divine dance.
The first time we saw this temple was barely a year before the deadly Tsunami. It was a translucent fibre glass structure then and at dusk, illuminated from within, it glowed like an ethereal gem. The only sound was the swoosh of the waves pounding the sand close by. It was an unforgettable experience.
Then came the Tsunami and washed that pyramid away totally. It has now been rebuilt with Compressed Stabilised Earth Blocks and Stabilised Earth Concrete that are said to be disaster proof. There's a mechanised sliding door that seals in the idol for safety. There's a more solid RC podium. The present structure was designed and executed by Auroville Earth Institute and the measurements comply with certain mystic numbers as given by The Mother of Pondicherry. The place is used for satsangs and prayer meetings of Aurovillians and likeminded societies. People like me can just go for gawking.
( Pyramid Nataraja temple : Before Tsunami )

( Karneshwara now )- pic. courtsey : Auroville Earth Institute.

Salt Pans of Marakkanam: Towards the end of the scenic beachway, near Marakkanam, the lanscape on the opposite side of the beach is dominated by hundreds of glistening white hillocks, for miles. Like a toyland recreation of the himalayan peaks ! These are the salt pans where the backwater is flooded into sandy troughs, left to dry up in the baking sun, and then turned and washed repeatedly till pure white crystalline salt is formed. This is swept together as hillocks, sometimes covered with colourful tarpauline sheets , to await the lorries that will cart them away to the market. On sunny days, the landscape is truly dazzling, with bright blue sky and blinding white mounds . And labouring on them, ebony skinned men and women in the brightest coloured lungis and sarees...................watch for five minutes to realise how much work goes into that pinch of salt we toss into the pot so thoughtlessly. They are truly the salt of the earth.

Village Temples : While on one side of the road the scene is pretty constant with casurina groves, sand and blue-grey sea, the other side has more colour. Fields, with their avian accessories, the egrets. And village temples, with the brightly painted giant Ayyanars or Veerans ( guardian deities) and clay horses. And shiny, rainbow hued fiberglass fishing boats, stacked for sale or parked for the day. On a lucky day, one can see a merry, boistrous festival too.

( Ayyanar )

All pictures ( except "Karneswara now") : By Son.

Once Upon A Diwali..........

Small communities of expatriate Indians , living in far flung small towns in alien land, are always thrilled to seize upon any excuse to have a jingoistic bash where they can wallow in nostalgia and longing for "home", with over- the- top exhibitions of Desi-ness.
Hyper-Desi sentiments, Uber-Desi attire, Ultra-Desi feasts .
Diwali is one such excuse and a grand one at that.

In the ghetto of the factory -campus in a smaller- than -small town of Indonesia, where we once lived, Diwali was always a Big Fat Desi Affaire par Excellence - yeah, Bollywood dances religiously included ! The Party was usually held not on actual Diwali day, but on the Saturday night nearest to it.
Since Fireworks were prohibited, a few anaemic chinese flare sticks were burnt for "tradition's" sake. But the rest of the party was great fun. Women turned out in bridal finery, men togged up like residual royalty, children stumbled around in cumbersome "ethnic" wear.
Dark odiferous chinese Gingelli oil , fuelled an assortment of wick lamps ( some lit in Pyrex dessert cups);
Sugar and coloured flour, incarnating in dozens of shapes and flavours, were exchanged by tray loads;
Reluctant children were bullied into reciting atrociously accented bhajans and shlokas ;
Any auntie who ever had sa-re-ga-ma dinned into her in her past, however remote, was given a concert hall opportunity ;
Rummy and Bingo went on in dizzying rounds ;
the latest ' filmi geets ' provided the background score ;
A lavish feast ,prepared by a battalion of housekeepers, was pigged into at unholy and unhealthy hours ;
And finally when everyone staggered home with take away gifts, it would almost be the dayafter. Who says we expats din't nurture Bharatiya Sanskriti !

Once, on a Diwali day ( midweek), a group of us decided to go on a little picnic to Garut, a district much eulogised for its Natural Beauty and geological curiosities. (Garut is also widely known for the delicious fudge , Dodol).
About 3 hours from home, the district is dotted with Volcanoes of all sort- active,dead, resting, incipient, susceptible , take-your-pick. Though stuck with an intimidating scientific label : " unstable stratovolcanic complex", Garut District ,which lies on elevated land , has a lovely crisp, newly washed feel to it.
When faint traces of sulphurous fumes start tainting the cool air, we know we are in proximity of the Patuha Volcano with its two huge craters Kawah Putih and Kawah Patuha..... We choose to visit the former as it has a 8 meter deep lake , while the latter is dry. Both places are marked out as tourist sight seeing spots, so there are ticket booths, paved walk ways , snack kiosks and trash bins at the entrance. A five minute walk from there takes us to the crater proper. It is v-a-s-t.
The water in the crater has a milky, greenish glaze to it and dense white fumes keep issuing out of it. The rim is well covered with vegetation and bleached volcanic rocks. It looks beautiful . And also a wee bit sinister, reminding one of Dante's "Inferno".From there, we drive for half an hour more to reach"Bumi Panas Kawah Kamojang" , a 25 hectare Geothermal Field, sitting on Mount Guntur ( =meaning Thunder), which incidentally is listed as "Active" ! We soon learn, to our relief ,that the activity consists only of boiling mudpools and steam geysers. There are about two dozen geysers, some of which shoot steam upto 20 meters into the air. PERTAMINA, the state owned Energy outfit, taps this geothermal energy for production of electricity.

The small Kamojang Township that we pass through looks very pretty and unbelievably like the toy town in Noddy stories. Neat as a pin !
A copse of woodland later, we enter the actual Geothermal Field.
The whole Field is heavily guarded and we are let in only after necessary clearance from the check post.

As we drive down, we can see dense white clouds issuing from the forest cover. Flanking the road are emerald meadows which are criss -crossed with snaking and twisting miles of large blue tubing . Looks like some futuristic movie set. They all lead to the power plant at the far end of the field, but we have no access to it. Tourists are expected to disembark at the parking lot and stroll through the jungle paths . And an awesome trek it is !

Boiling mud pools and steam vents pop up along the beaten paths without notice. Geysers howl intermittently behind bushes. And sulphur steam clouds up vision here and there. Often, we tip toe cautiously, picking our way gingerly between two simmering mud pools. At many places one can feel the heat through the very ground one is walking on.
The earth is literally seething here. Some particularly powerful geysers are( mercifully) fenced in ! One Geyser called "The Locomotive" makes a sound very similar to a steam engine.
Such tremendous heat just underfoot, yet, the jungle is so lush ; the air remains cool, even nippy; birds and small animals romp around merrily. Difficult to understand this compatibility.
.
By noon, we were heading home.
'Look at us' we told ourselves, 'good bharatiya behenjis, goose- stepping around smelly craters , instead of going to a temple on Diwali day ! '
The day was still young. So, on an impulse, we decided to take a small detour and visit Cangkuang Picnic Spot , a site we had heard about.
We had heard that there was a nice island there, in a nice lake , with nice boating facilities, surrounded by nice gardens. We arrived expectantly. And it was .....NICE !
Pretty picture. The nice lake even had nice patches of white and purple waterlilies in full bloom. Boating meant taking a nice reed raft fitted with benches and an awning. So pretty and so nice that anyone weaned on a diet of Desi movies could break into a nice song .
As we rafted towards the island, which was covered with tall straight trees, we noticed , with excitement, the outline of a........Candi ! A hindu temple ! Now this was a real discovery for we had had no info. about it before that. We scrambled up the bank and, sure enough, found a small stone temple of some antiquity. It looked austere with not much ornamentation.

Of course, compared to the magnificent Siwa temples of Central Java, this one was only a bare and humble structure, but it's importance lay in its utmost rarity in West Jawa. A sign board explained that the present temple was reassembled from ruins excavated from under old volcanic debris. We peeped inside the sanctum and found only a small, unidentifiable torso . But it was called "Durga" ! Right behind the temple lay a grave. That of a revered muslim preacher of 17th. century named Arif Mohammad, who, as a Mataram warlord, had earlier resisted , unsuccessfully, the invading Dutch adventurers.

We returned home by dusk, happy at having witnessed the steaming detritus of Mother Nature's own fireworks and happier still with our unexpected visit to an ancient Durga temple on Diwali day.
A nice co-incidence, which can also be called a nice miracle.