It is not yet afternoon, but 57-year-old S. Ganesan is profusely sweating from brow to toe as he hammers a red hot piece of steel, which in a few hours will be used to drill rock-hard concrete. He has just sharpened a ‘drill bit’ for A. Khaleel, a building contractor.
His ‘office’ – a pavement on K.B. Dasan Salai, Teynampet has three modest seats – all made of solid iron. Besides Mr. Ganesan, 74-year-old A.Munusamy, who keeps hand-pedaling a blower and K. Bharathi, his 30-year-old son-in-law, whose job is to hammer the red hot steel that comes straight from the furnace’ also earn their living there.
Kollam pattarai – blacksmith lathes — are an intrinsic part of the life and culture of the Tamil people. “We feel proud to carry on a profession that is several hundred years old,” says Mr. Ganesan, who hails from Konai village near Ginjee in Villupuram district.
He learnt the trade from his father and after dropping out of school, took it up full time. “We sold all our land and came here 40 years ago. I have been working from this same spot for 37 years,” Mr. Ganesan says, as he adds charcoal to the furnace – where air from the blower stokes the fire. The steel rods are sunk into the burning coal for a few minutes and Mr. Ganesan pulls them out at the precise moment before which they begin to melt and cannot be hammered to get the desired shape.
Blacksmiths like Mr. Ganesan were once in great demand, but with the increased mechanisation of farming, the demand for their services dipped. Similarly, with easy-to-use tools becoming common in construction, few people approach them anymore.
However, some customers remain loyal. “Even though we buy tools for all aspects of construction, we come to Ganesan for sharpening our crowbars and drills. There is some charm in the way the blacksmiths work,” says Mr. Khaleel.
But Mr. Ganesan does not have high hopes for the future of the profession. “I do not see my children working in this trade. I can work for another 10 years. My son, a computer science graduate, is not adept at this and I want him to take up some other job,” he says.
A centuries-old tradition of forging tools and instruments is on the decline as blacksmiths are rarely employed these days
