THE BLUE METAL(JELLEY) Dearfriends,
My homein Chennai is one side of the Sudarsan Nagar Main road, a forty feet road atMadampakkam. Leaving water harvesting area on either side and walking path, for about 24 feet re- laying work was going onand is about to finish today. I looked at the most modern equipment for the works,having about ten skilled workers excluding drivers. While granite was spreading(after digging and levelling old finish with bull dozer) using lorry andspreading and two or three workers levelling ends, I had a thinking of writingabout granite/ blue metal. Today myposting is about stones in general though I have titled as Blue metal. Thereason for titling so is that jelly appears dark blue. Metals are in smallpercentage in it. Let me go in toKarimkal Sincerely, Gopala Krishnan29-4-2021 1. Availability. Normallythe rock is available under the ground or as hill or in the plane land itself hereand there according to geographical conditions of a long period. In Kerala rockis found rarely under the soil. But hard soil called vettukal is found. Thenrocks are found. InTamilnadu vettukal is not seen, instead semi hard soil followed by Karimkal isfound. There is a place called Karimkal near Nagerkovil. In Karnataka side similar to small hills rocksare found here and there even in almost plane area. A hillhas almost rocks and soil here and there. In the soil area trees grow making forests. But I have seen in Ooty onrock top also grassgrowing to a height of 3 feet. I have wondered how they hold to rock. Most ofour rock requirements are met from fully formed hills. Probably such rocks maybe most suited. There are hills with red colour, slightly blue colour and blueand white mix. The third type is preferred in central Kerala since is easier towork with it for laying foundation, construction etc. 2. Use of rocks Duringancient period rocks was the main component for building temples, palaces etc.The rocks are heavy. The idols of male gods are mostly made of rocks using maletype rocks. Female rock is used foridols of Goddess Big rockswere chiselled to the required size and dimensions. It is told so much accuracyin sizing is not there now. We have missed the link of correct cutting and sizing used by ourancestors, I have learnt. I have heard in student days that the extract ofsome plant put in a straight line simply divided the rock on those days. They too could not specify the plant. 2a. Rubble In Keralathe haphazard sized rocks roughly cut from big rocks from hill called rubble is used forfoundation of houses, compound walls, and constructing walls of the largebuildings with ground and 1st floor only. Along thesea border in Kerala these rubbles of still bigger sizes are put so that thewaves hit them and go back and dwelling near sea shore are protected to acertain extent. Still large waves may many times cross them and hit shoreduring rough sea. InTamilnadu Blue colour stones sized from hills are used as foundation stones.Wall construction for buildings using rock is rare in Tamilnadu. In Tamilnadubricks are used. InTamilnadu rubble is called aralaiand used for construction of base for one floor rarely. But it is notcommon. As told earlierat one time the rubble was used for construction of bigger buildings with 2floors. On those days pillar construction was not so common. The college whereI studied, the NSSCollege at Pandalam is fully constructed with rubbles in the outer andcement plastered inside. Rubblewas also used to construct kayyala (mound) where slop is more in Kerala. Compound walls of some rich are also of rubbleeven now. Rubblewas indeed a costly item even on those days. For building some sort of re-sizingand architectural work is done to add beauty. 2b Jelly Jelly isprepared in different sizes. Mostly it is prepared out of haphazard sizedgranite breaking in to smaller pieces. It may be matter of interest thatmolecular balance gets reduced and sizing to jelly is not a very hard labourrequiring work. Normally lady workers dothe job. The place where with a permission, hill is broken to get rocks iscalled Para mata.Slightly distant to it, under shelter we can see women engaged in jellypreparation. Of course for the non- experience it is a hard job only. Jelly is prepared in different sizesas required for the works. 2c. Use of stone jelly Stone jelly ismost essential today for all RCC works. (Re in -forced cement concrete.) Forroofing, pillar construction, beam construction etc. jelly is used. In roadlaying either with black top or with concrete jelly is used. Here the size ofjelly for different layers is of different sizes. 3. The floor laying marble Marble isalso a type of rock. But it is availablein certain areas only. In states like Rajasthan,Bihar etc., marble is available. We can get marble showcase items at Badaghatnear Jabalpur.Here the river Narmadaflows with medium current but very shallow. In certain areas we can see marblerocks on either side of the river at Badaghat. Sangham famous Hindi film, many shots were done here. 4. The floor laying granite. Today’sfloor laying granite is the great grandson of the earlier Thalakkal used inmandapams, outside sanctum for sreebali etc. Thegranite slab is mechanically cut and polished and coloured rock blocks. If we take in hand the same size of marbleand granite slab, the granite slab would weigh about 1, 5 times of marble slab.While marble slab is liable to break with heavy objects falling, the breakingof granite slabs is lesser. The density of granite is high. But theslippery action in granite is more than marble and on account of this it is marble best suited to internalstair case which is often used. Externally it is better to havecement plastered slabs for foot grip. Granitewould not break like marble or tiles and flooring granite is best though costis very high. There are many granite factories in Karnataka and Tamilnadu. 5. Pillayar patti idol works I hadbeen to Pillayar Patti rock carved Ganesha temple near Karaikuti twotimes and on the way I could see craft men working out idols on sized granite. I am toldthere are three varieties of granites and the male one is suitable for making maleidols. Female granite for goddess and neutral one for pedestal I first heard in film Perumthachaan about male and female stones.The idols works require more caution. Even an uneven hammering may break aboutto finish idol. The latest informationabout idol suited for stones is by google search. One can see the earliest granite rough works at Tirunelli temple in Wayanadu. 5a. Installation of idols Last itembefore installation of an idol is called kannu keeral (opening of eye). The idol made by the craftsman will havethe eyes closed and brought for installation. It will be laid before sanctum. In the temple the chief priest (on those days)carved eyes after pooja before installation. Now theidol is finished and brought, the priest with idol fully finished. For the sakeof custom the chief priest JUSTTOUCHES the eye with uli (chisel) and hammer. A feather touch. 6. The granite powder (Parappodi) It isused in all areas, in high way construction, after laying jelly, pressed andevened by roller bitumen is applied. After hot bitumen become cool, rock powderis evenly sprayed over it. Bitumen does not become stickier and the surface gives smoothness with grip onaccount of this. Parappodiis used by the carpenters to sharpen chisel. Carpenters would bring a paperpack of parappodi while coming for wood works. 7. Idols with RCC Ratherthan resorting to getting very big granite stone weighing 7-8 metric tons, nowa day to make huge idols of Ganapathi, Anjaneya etc. RCC is used. The finalworks are done with special sand cement works. In newconstruction pillars also in buildings, the architectural appearance is made bythis sand- cement works over the straight RCC Pillar by crafts men. About ayear back I read about a big male elephant made of RCC and coloured in theentrance of a home in Kerala. It appeared natural with adorned Nettipattam in gold plating. (Home of Sri PRRajagopalan at Perinkulam) 8. Nadaswaram in granite stone I haveread else where one crafts man has made even nadaswaram with granite. Surely thenadaswaram might be heavy. InKanyakumari Vivekanda rock all granite works are using light red rocks. In Suchindramtemple near Nagerkovil the art works are in white grey granite 9. Today application of granite in kitchen. In all wetgrinders the sized blue granite is the stone used for grinding part. Kitchenand work area platforms in most homes are having granite top on RCC work. Forvasthu, a grindingstone and washing stone is placed in independent homes/ houses in Tamilnadu.Mostly the grinding stone is used for breaking coconuts for kitchen use, andkept clean. The washing stone is many times used for washing more soiledclothes, washing cleaning clothes, which require beating a little for neatwashing. In bathrooms one tile location is provided with a granite slightly rough top piece. Thishelps in foot rubbing, and small items washing like the collar of shirt etc. Womenwho apply turmeric use it for rubbing and making a paste. 10. Beauty of rubble and granite. Iconclude this posting with the beauty of the basement and full constructionwith rubble. The cement outer works along the joints and a carving through itand application of paint gives much beauty to the basement. In the fullconstruction too this applies. My RTTC building and hostels at Trivandrum wereof this type. However in between pillars were also constructed to supportweight and to have three/fourfloors. 11. Sand The sandis broken particles of rock while water flowing over it for years and coming inthe stream and settle here and there. Hence small and large sand shores. Yester years it was a practice to walk throughsand shore of rivers in the evenings for men. While such strolling through the riversand shore along Ganga RiverKing Santhanu met the beautiful female form of river Ganga. Thecolour of sand is slightly yellow brownish. This colour change might be due tochemical actions on the rock bits while coming through river. The rock bits areblack while coming as we see in the Pampa while taking bath during sabarimalaipilgrimage. Gradually it changes colour. I requestlearnt members to supplement my postingfor the yellowish shining colour of sand. This is a re-written posting of an earlierone posted on 10-10-2011. -- 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/1215584950.1472976.1619688764353%40mail.yahoo.com.
