The Aranmula Heritage Trust (AHT) will launch a project to restore the deluge-ravaged heritage sites in Aranmula on the banks of the Pampa.
Kummanam Rajashekharan, Mizoram Governor and patron of the trust, said he held a discussion on the issue with Union Minister for Culture Mahesh Sharma who had promised to send an expert team to Aranmula to assess the damage to various heritage sites.
Mr. Rajashekharan said the flood had reportedly done irreparable damage to the traditional metal mirror industry at Aranmula. The flood had badly hit the small groups of artisan families that made the unique metal mirror, Aranmula Kannadi.
The master craftsmen who made the world-famous mirrors had literally lost their livelihood with the floods.
He said the Archaeological Survey of India Director had also agreed to extend help to revive the metal-mirror industry and to protect various other heritage symbols at Aranmula.
Mr. Rajashekharan said the Union Ministry would be sending an expert team to Aranmula on September 2. The former ASI Director M. Velayudhan Nair, historians from Kerala such as M.G. Sasibhushan, former heads of the National Museum in Delhi, environmentalists such as Madhav Gadgil, and researchers in the fields of archaeology, wetland conservation, museum, and so on would be part of the proposed team, he said.
22 of 25 hit
AHT spokesperson S. Hari, who would coordinate the project, said 22 of the 25 small-scale metal mirror units at Aranmula had been badly hit in the floods.
He said the artisans were even unable to procure the clay for making the moulds from the Aranmula Puncha as the entire field had been covered with thick deposits of sticky mud.
Gireesh and Sivankutty, craftsmen who had been engaged in making the Aranmula Kannadi, said they lost all their implements. “Even the clay we had scooped out of the puncha has been washed away,’’ they said.
The AHT project, perhaps, offers them a ray of hope.
