The art of fine hammering

A beautiful copper embossed name plate welcomes the visitor into the Kasaba Peth office of kadu,the copper artisan. One can picture such a name palte on any of the stylish,modern homes in india and abroad and be amazed that This tiny littile alleyway,tucked away in one of Pune's by lanes,has produces a word of art that transcends borders. That in a nutshell,embodies how art can be be a unifying factor the word over.......
               Kadu is a rarity.he is own of ten families working and living in Tambat Ali.The word 'tambat' comes form 'tamba' or copper. Originally from Karnataka,Kadu's forefathers were brought to pune during the reign of the Peshwas in the 18th  century to make copper coin.Initially four of five families from the Twastha Kansar Caste moved to Pune but their numbers grew and eventually the tambats made this particular patch of pune their own.The Twastha Kasar Community gets its name from Twasta who was the third son of Vishwakarma,the engineer of Gods.The tambats claim their origin from him.The word kansar is derived from thrie occupation and denotes people who either make bangles or make and sell copper or brass, People from this community usually have surnames such as samel,Dandekar,Kadu,Nijampurkar,Hajare,Wadke and Godambe.

Excavations at sites such as Mohenjodaro show that metal craft was practiced since early times in region.Copper objects such as beads,bangles,weapons have been unearthed.Different metals needed different treatment and expertise which eventually resulted in the formation of specialized groups of metal craftsmen such as  goldsmiths, coppersmiths and ironmonger's. The coppersmiths moved to various parts of india and later came to be knows by various names such as Tamtas in Rajastan, Tameras in Uttar Pradesh,Madhua Prasesh,Bhigar and Orissa,Tambranik's in West Bengal,and chembotti in kerala.In maharashtra,They call themselves Tambats and even though they once spanned the state,they are today mainly found in temple towns such as Nasik and old capitals such as Pune and Kolhapur.

          Physically,Tambat ali is interconnected maze of streets and buildings with narrow spaces and wider chowks where the coppersmiths have their workshops and living quarters. Pune is the most important place for thambat craft in Maharashtra. They achieved this status initially as a direct results of Peshwa patronage and later because of the introduction of railways during the British occupation and thus the need for copper utensils through trade.

 Copper was an important metal ans coppersmiths graduated from making copper coins to providing for needs of the community by making utensils as well as idols of worship.The tambats of pune specialized in mathar kaam which is the art of beating copper to make it strong. In her book'Glimpser of Pune' historian Samita Gupta refers to Acharya P.K. Atre's autobiography where he says, "I woke up on the firsts morning to the tap-tapping of the tambats, I had never heard this new variety of sound before and this special sound cannot be heard anywhere else in the world.I felt I had come to nivel Place..." The coppersmiths of Tambat Ali are in intrinsic part of Kasba peth and a significant feature if Pune's Heritage tapestry.

There were eight hundred households actively involved in the copper craft running approximately a hundred and ten copper craft running appoximately a hundres and ten Workshops,By 1993,the numbers dwindled to hundreds and fifty families running workshops. Two years ago there were sixty families involved in the trade.currently, there are only eight to ten families whose livelihood depends directly on the tambat craft. "The increasing price of raw material is certainly big factor." explains Kadu with a shrug. "it was Rs 180 per kilogram three to four year ago and is now 460a kilogram.But there are number of other factors involved."

Marwadi businesses have a stronghold on the copper trade, They have the wherewithal to build factories where large utensils can be made by machines. The coppersmiths of Tambat Ali cannot make these large utensils. There specialization however cannot be achieved by a machine and the copper smiths are needed to beat the strength into these utensils.

The lanes leading to the workshops have lines of gleaming copper utensils piled up, waiting to be beaten in a few places,mainly Thailand and Indonesia.the beaten work is done by machines but this technology has not reached India.

 Apart from mechanization and mass production,steel.aluminum and plastic materials have begun rising in popularity.All these factors have led to decline in skilled labor, from within the tambat community, with the younger and shunning the craft assiduously tended by their forefathers.Interestingly,students of Art from schools such as JJ school of Art in Mumbai,Abhinav kala vidyalay,Pune and even kolhapur come to learn more about copper craft,with some spending as much as two years interning with tambats.The copper artisans are the one stop resource for problem solving for many of these students who go on to establish themselves as artists.The problem is that these students have a vision which is different from the coppersmiths, Kadu and his ilk have specialized in mathar kaam and produce small copper utensils but have not expanded their range.The world today is interested in copper goods but veers aways from the traditional. Household utensils such as tapele (rice cooking vessels), bhagule to cook vegetables,modakpatra to stem food,ghanghal which is a bath container,chahadani to make tea,bamb(water heater)wati(small bowl),kadhai(frying pan)as well as traditional objects of worship such as ghanta (bell)niranjan(oil lamp),lamandiva(hanging oil lamp) and other articles such as taraju(weighing scales),kulup(lock),palang(bed) and fani(comb) are some of the traditional items made bye coppersmiths of Tambat Ali.candle stands trays,picture frames and other modern day lifestyle accessories are more in demand today.....

Copper craft relies on a number of factors. The principal raw materials include copper and an alloy of copper. The copper can be brought in the form of sheets from the market which is generally what Kadu and his colleagues do or else,as ingots,slabs,billets and scrap,Chemicals such as sulphuar and other acids aslso from a part of the required raw material.

 Watching a coppersmith at work is spellbinding.The traditional craft process user manual shaping and beating.Each step has to be done by hand and it takes a long time.Now the tamba craftsmen in Pune have begun standardizing certain objects in order to speed up production.Mechanization is used for the spinning and press work. There are various sizes and shapes that can be achieved in this process.However,large and complex items cannot be machine produced.

      After a basic shape is attained,mismatches need to be checked before pieces are welded together.Most of the copper articles are made by welding two or more shapes together in a process called zalkaam. The components are heated on an open bhatti(furnace)to ensure fusion of the separately made parts the object needs to be acid washed(ujalkaam) and with the help of a wire brush patches are cleaned away and weld marks are evened out Then the object is finally redy for the unique process of mathar kaam where small indentations are hammered onto them.

                The beauty of the art of beating is that it can vary from piece to piece and artisan to archive the required density of indentations as well as the size and orientation.Different tools such as chisels,hammers,clippers and tongs are used to mould and beat the metal and coerce a shape.Kadu can make as many as fifty small diyas(lamps) a day but since the mathar kaam cannot be done by machine,productivity suffers.If not for this laborious process,many more items could be completed in a day.