THATI (WOOD)-PART1 Dear friends,
About 20 days back Isaw a posting by Mr. KRaman, one of the moderators of the Thatha paatti yahoo group aboutCricket player Sachin Tendulkar. In that Mr. Raman had mentioned, during his junior days Sachinused to sleep with his cricket gear. Update- Now thathapatti google group only is there. I donot know whether Mr Raman still remains as moderator. I had some furniturework at that time in my house. My carpenter had brought excellent teak woodbattens well-cut and drawn above one-inch width for the works as a bundle. I thought after the work, he would take theremaining with him. Some 20% had been surplus. After the work the carpentertold me- I have collected money from you for the entire lot. If any other workcomes, I want to preserve these quality ones here. Among those remainingbattens there was a small one about 14 inches in length with good fragrance ofteak wood. Seeing my looking at it. Hetold me, just apply sand paper; it would become a perfect scale. He had no sandpaper. After he finished the work, I purchased sandpaper and applied on all sides making it still more smooth and straight and it became a beautiful piece. Somehow,either because I made the finishing or for the quality, I was keeping that withme all the time for some days. Some fascination to it. I desired to write about such fascinations. Update- Instead of that scale, I keep now with me a scratching rod in bed,since it is not sure at what time there would appear itching at back . Abeautiful scratching rod in bamboo. Later days I thought-that fascination came to me because it was quality teak wood. Why I should notwrite about wood quality and appearance. In the mean time Sri Venkita Raman Perinthalmannahad written to me about the bitterness of Kanjiram wood and transferring it to even cookeditems if used as fire wood while discussing about some other matter. Today myposting is about wood. I hope something new could be here for readers. Sincerely, Gopala Krishnan27-12-2012 Reposted on 23-2-2021 after editing and updating. R.Gopala Krishnan 1. Rose wood- King of woods. (Eatti) Rose wood harder thanteak wood is mostly found used to make idols and very costly furniturenow. I have seen in the Khadi crafts,Elephants to the size of more than 2 feet height and 3 feet length made fromsingle rose wood piece. On touching those pieces I could feel the weight. In 2000’s I had tomake a compliment of two small elephants. Arranging with khadi craft inTrivandrum I made out two having a height of about 7 inches and length of about8 inches. However probablybeing small, price was not exorbitant. In old houses one cansee almirahs, tables, cots, chairs etc. made of rose wood. Special skill isrequired to work on rose wood for carpenters. Rose would is highly durable. 2. Teak wood. (Theakku) Teak is having twoqualities. One is durability and another pleasing appearance on finishing itemswith the wood through its natural markings. Mica sheet given teak wood finishis liked more than other finishes. The smell of teak wood is lasting for years.In Tamilnadu it is a custom to have the main entrance door of homes is madewith teak wood. Others doors and window frames may be any other wood, mostlydoors with some imported wood like rubber. (Not plywood nowadays). The interiortoo is made using this wood by some designers. 2a. Thekku pattika Old tiled houses inKerala used to have pattika (Lath) to fit tiles made of teak wood. Normallywhite ants (Chithal) would not come near teak wood. 2b. Teak wood poles In my boyhood days Ihave found teak wood posts used by electricity board to draw the power wires.They used to appear greenish blue. From my father I could gather the colour difference was due to thespecial treatment given to it. 2c. Ownership of teak wood tree. In my child hooddays, irrespective of the place it grows, TEAK WOOD TREES BELONGED TO THE GOVERNMENT IN KERALA. If a teak wood tree grows in a person’scompound, he had least power to cut its branches. Update- Now the rule is abolished. 2d. Nilambur forests and teak wood trees. Teak is made to growstraight cutting the branches after it grow above 10 feet. Nilambur forests inMalappuram district have abundant growth of teak wood trees. The railway linewas laid mainly to transport the cut and sized teakwood poles, I have heard. Update- Whatever the fact, the railway line isused to shoot incidents for cine films now. Passenger traffic is lessin the route. 2e. Furnitures Teak wood furnitureis more popular irrespective of the cost. Most furniture is made of teak woodin olden days. Now cots, almirahs, tables etc. seen made with teak wood MAINLY. Painting is neverdone to furniture made of teak wood. They are either polished orvarnished. Imported wood lesscostly is used now a day for furniture. Processed wood also is used. Howeverteak wood is teak wood. 3. Jack wood and Wild jackwood. (Plampalaka andAnjilippalaka) Yesterday, today andtomorrow also Kerala would/ will be using these two woods more than otherstates. The Nalukettu, Ettu kettu, nira. Ara, patthayam all were using jack wood on those days. Jack wood is not so commonly used in Tamilnadu. Probably the species in Tamilnadu could be different. Jack fruit tree growswider, hence its wood is commonly used in olden days for doors. Most Kerala houseswill have furniture made of jack wood. With its yellowish brown colour it givesa pleasing appearance. Painting is not done to furniture made of jack wood.They are either polished or varnished. The jack wood is wasused to make musical instruments like Nadaswaram (double reed wind instrumentlike lengthy shehnai), different types of drums like chenda, thakil, maddalametc. Now some other types of woods are also used. Jack wood is a softone. Carpenters like to work on it. Old nila,ara, pathayam etc in houses were of jack wood. For carving idolsjack wood is used. The idols of Thirumanthan kunnu Devi and Kodungallur devi and Attukal Devi are made of jack wood. One can see thedisplay of elephants etc. made of jack wood, near the Padmanabha swamy templein Trivandrum. At one time I had fancy to those wooden elephants. A lot ofwooden elephants were in my show case. Relatives were complimented. Now only threeare there- Male, female and baby elephant. In our Brahmin homesit is common to see thookuvanchi(swing) made of jack wood plank, mostly singleplank with out joint. Thottil (Baby cot) were made of jack wood. Now thottil isbecoming rare. In a documentary about Palghat Agraharam seen about an year back,I recollect in a home, thottil used to keep books. Anjili is anotherwood used commonly in Kerala. Anjili has a place next to Jack wood. It is more used forwood works in the buildings like door frames, window frames and their shutters,pillars, beams etc. In Government constructions onecould see it is used more. I will continue in next part -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1058802803.1326263.1614081434157%40mail.yahoo.com.
