I
went to Panangad Island along with ‘Appachan’
to meet Govinda Panickan who was one of the noted blacksmiths in the nearby
area. We wanted him to repair our Blunderbuss gun which had a hairline crack on
its barrel. When we went to his house, the blacksmith was making an axe by
heating an iron piece over a burning hot furnace. When he saw the gun to be
repaired, he took out the axe and put the barrel into the hearth of charcoal
fire. He narrated to me the deftness and expertise of his workmanship. He
demonstrated how a blacksmith worked on sealing a hairline crack on the lower
portion of the barrel of a gun. His son added more charcoal into the hearth. He
rekindled the dying flame by using the blower. After it was adequately heated,
he applied the grounded Borax (Ponkaram)
powder on to the area of the hairline crack on the barrel and then put Brass (Pichala) into the hairline split in order to solder it. He said that copper also could be used for soldering but it was a
costly metal. This burning hot gun was then tempered by immersing it into a
container of water. Finally the gun was removed from the water and it was ready
for use.
I
personally knew Padmanabha Panicken and his son Kutty who lived in the central
area of Kumbalam. They too were expert blacksmiths. Rajappan Panicken Villiarvattom, his close
relation, is another important blacksmith in that area. There are about twenty
five blacksmiths belonging to Vishwakarma community residing in the center area.
There are a few goldsmiths also living in that area.
Excerpts from
MEMOIRS
An autobiography
by
Joseph J. Thayamkeril
Lawyer, Kochi, Kerala, India.
josephjthayamkeril.blogspot.com
josephjthayamkeril@gmail.com
josephjthayamkeril@gmail.com
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