Come Pongal cooking rice in mud pots placed over a clay ‘chulah’ in the colourfully decorated courtyard of houses are images that flash through everyone’s mind.
Though this practice continues even now in rural pockets, another locally made utensil used to cook the ‘pongal’ in the mud pot has vanished. It is nothing but the ladle made of coconut shell and bamboo stick.
Surprisingly this utensil, is still in practice at a small hamlet, Venngaoryankudikadu, near Thanjavur.
A group of carpenters residing in Vengaroyankudikadu manufacture this traditional ladle using the coconut shells collected from houses in the village and by chopping off the bamboo into small pieces of two to two-and-half feet in length.
As this utensil is made primarily to preserve the traditional practice, M. Ganapathy of Vengaroyankudikadu, a carpenter said these laddles are distributed free of cost to houses celebrating the `pongal’ festival.
In turn, the families honour the carpenters by presenting a ‘padi’ (roughly 1.50 kilograms) of rice, unbroken coconut, fruits, betel leaf and areca-nut, Ganapathy added.
