It is 10 a.m. on a hot summer morning in April. Pramod Wadke is focussed deeply on the golden-yellow sheets in front of him. He cuts a thin circle of copper, then gets another sheet and bends it around to form the shape of a pot. He places the sheets in a pit where a fire burns and welds them together. As the copper burns a bright red, Wadke picks up an iron rod and stokes the flames, making sparks fly. Paper-thin ash flakes swirl around and sting the eyes. Wadke seems unaware of it — he wipes off sweat, brings the sheets out of the smithy, and hammers them hard.
In his hands, a vessel slowly starts taking shape. When it’s done, he begins to polish it. Then, he dips it into sulphuric acid. Suddenly, the plain-looking pot is gleaming golden. Wadke puts it out to dry — where it looks resplendent in the afternoon sun.
Working to the beat
Wadke is one of the last few remaining coppersmiths in Pune’s Tambat Ali. And he is practising an art that was brought to the city by his forebears at least 400 years ago.
In the courtyard-cum-workshop of Sanjay Lanjekar’s house in Tambat Ali, the incessant thak-thak of karigars or artisans hammering away at copper forms the background music. The deafening noise doesn’t seem to bother the artisans, including Lanjekar, who talks to us looking over his spectacles, his face smeared with sweat and soot. Some of the artisans are busy stoking the fire for welding, others are hammering. They have been at work since 6:00 a.m., and will be at it till darkness falls.
The Tambat Ali community of coppersmiths are located in Kasba Peth. An ali is a street or cluster of streets inhabited by people of a particular community, such as potters, coppersmiths, carpenters and the like. Copper is tamba in Marathi — hence the name, Tambat Ali.
Moving over
At one time, the Tambat community lived and thrived in the Konkan districts of Maharashtra. Then, at the invitation of the Peshwas, the Tambats settled in Pune some 400 years ago. They made household items for the Peshwai household — betel-nut boxes, rolling pins, utensils, storage vessels and the bumba , a huge copper pot that was used to heat water. They also made items used in war, like swords, shields and ammunition. There were once around 200 Tambat families here, but now only a handful remain.
Copper vessels made by Tambat Ali artisans
As in the olden days, the coppersmiths continue to have their living quarters and workshops within the same premises. Most families live in small, ill-lit, one-bedroom houses. At first glance, a house like Lanjekar’s looks like any other, with a steel cot occupying one corner of the courtyard and clothes hanging from the rod fixed outside the door. Look closer and you notice the hammers and chisels hooked to the wall — the stock in trade of the artisans.
“Crafting a vessel from the sheets is hard work,” says Wadke, who has been a coppersmith for the last 48 years. After the copper plates are heated, cooled and annealed, comes mathar kaam, the art of beating them into shape, before a vessel assumes form. “Each piece requires long hours of work, patience and effort,” says Sunil Wadke, another coppersmith.
Each artisan makes a different vessel, specialising in one, whether pot, glass or plate. “Earlier,” says Sunil, “we also made copper coins and swords, then only vessels, but with the coming of plastic and aluminium in the 1970s, the demand for copper started to decline.”
Bharat Nijampurkar, one of the senior members of the Tambat Samaj, an organisation formed in 1985 to help the artisans, says that the younger ones don’t want to continue the work. “They all have corporate jobs that pay much more. This work fetches us not more than ₹8,000-10,000 a month. Moreover, it is seasonal; we cannot work during the monsoon.”
New market
Vikrant Dhakave, however, is an exception. A commerce graduate, he worked in a bank for a year before realising he was better off helping his father with mathar kaam . “I used to spend 10-12 hours in the bank. I decided to do something of my own instead. I enjoy this work,” he says. He makes three to four bumbas a day, which fetches him ₹750-800 per kg.
The Tambat Samaj gets the artisans to enrol in various exhibitions. The Bhimtadi Jatra, a four-day annual fair, sees many coppersmiths from Tambat Ali participating and selling their products. With people rediscovering the health benefits of copper, tableware like jugs, glasses and woks are becoming popular again.
The Samaj is also trying to convince art schools and institutions to include the art of making copper vessels in the curriculum. Intach is supporting artisans with modern designs and new market.
Says Supriya Goturkar-Mahabaleshwarkar, co-ordinator, Intach Pune, “While documenting Pune’s heritage, we felt that this traditional craft, with its unique aspects of mathar kaam , needed to be revived.”
Warsaa, The Heritage Shop, an Intach outlet, stocks copper products. Studio Coppre, an undertaking set up in 2014, is also doing its bit by training artisans in better finishes and designs to appeal to global buyers.
But as I leave Tambat Ali, I see a few women haggling over copper pots, possibly the same shapes used by their ancestors four centuries ago. It reiterates my faith that the tradition won’t die out very soon.
The writer is as happy penning stories as she is crunching numbers, which fuel her creativity.
