Aparna Karthikeyan

P. Sainath

Editor

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The woodcutter lifts the axe overhead and – thwack – hits
the log. Ten feet away, I flinch. Sweat trickles down his back; it drenches the
towel wrapped around his waist, over a pair of cotton shorts. Thud! He hits the
wood again. It cleaves… splinters fly. The woodcutter’s name is M. Kamachi. Long
ago, he worked as an agricultural labourer. He speaks to me without raising his
head. His eyes are trained on the business end of the axe. 

Kamachi’s workplace for the last 30 years is a shed near
the Sivagangai Poonga, a grand old garden in Thanjavur. He is 67 years
old. At 150 years, the garden is over twice his age. The temple nearby – the
great Brihadeeshwara Kovil – is 1,100 years old. And the instrument he is
roughly sculpting by hand, is mentioned in texts that go back further, way
further. Kamachi is shaping a veenai – more commonly known as the veena
– from a four-foot log of jackfruit wood. 

To steady the timber, he places his right foot inside the
depression that will, one day, become kudam (resonator) of the veenai.
The shed is dusty and hot even in the shade and Kamachi’s work is hard and
heavy. He gets paid 600 rupees daily for his labour. And skill. He grunts every
time the axe strikes; now and then, he wipes his face with a rough towel.

In a few hours, he
whittles down a 30-kilogram log down to 20, and it will be ready to go to the pattarai (workshop) where it will be chiselled and polished by craftsmen. In a
month’s time, the finished instrument will sit on a player’s lap, and make beautiful music.

The veenai is born in Thanjavur. The Saraswati veena
– an older version of the Thanjavur veenai – is India’s national
instrument. And one of the three ‘<a href="https://search.ipindia.gov.in/GIRPublic/Application/Details/209">celestial instruments’</a>,
with references from ‘vedic times’, along with mridangam and flute. 

Like many other
percussion instruments – mridangam, kanjira, tavil, udukkai – the veenai
too begins its journey in the groves near Panruti, the small town in Cuddalore
district, famous for its sweet and fleshy jackfruit. What is less known is the
jackfruit’s link with some of the most iconic musical instruments of India.

“He agreed to stay, on hearing my words, like a 
bull elephant that could not be controlled by a goad*, but is 
controlled by a yāzh.”

<a href="https://sangamtranslationsbyvaidehi.com/ettuthokai-kalithokai-palai-1-36/">Kalithokai 2, Sangam poem</a> 

The ‘<a href="https://search.ipindia.gov.in/GIRPublic/Application/Details/209">statement of case’</a> to apply
for a Geographical Indication for the Thanjavur Veena – which it received in
2013 – has several references to the string instrument’s history, tracing it
back to the Sangam period (about 2,000 years ago), when the version of
the veenai that existed was called the ‘yāzh’.  

“Will he come, your bard who told me that he 
would not conceal from me if you went to other 
women, swearing on his yāzh many times, to see 
the scars on your neck caused by the bangles of 
women who trusted your lies and united with you?”

<a href="https://sangamtranslationsbyvaidehi.com/ettuthokai-kalithokai-66-100-marutham/">Kalithokai 71, Sangam poem</a>,
What a concubine said to the hero 

The geographical indication document specifies jack wood as
the raw material and has elaborate details of its construction. The four-foot
long veenai, it notes, “has a large, round body with a thick, wide neck,
the end of which is carved into the head of a dragon.” 

The veenai itself is a lot more elegant than its
description. It’s curved in places, carved in others. The dragon head – yali,
as it is called – is striking, and colourful. The wooden neck has 24 fixed
frets and four playing strings, which produce all the ragas. The kudam
(resonator) has intricate designs in ‘special’ veenais, and they are
priced at least twice as much as the ordinary ones.  

For about 30 to 50
years before it is transformed by human hand into an instrument, the palamaram
(jackfruit tree) grows in groves in the villages around Panruti, in Cuddalore
district of Tamil Nadu. Like cattle, trees too are an investment. The rural
populace considers them like stocks – the value usually appreciates, and they
can be sold for a neat profit. R. Vijaykumar, 40, a jackfruit trader in Panruti
town explains that once the trunk is eight hands wide, and 7 or 9 feet tall, “<a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/the-house-that-lakshmi-built-in-panruti/">just the timber alone</a> fetches 50,000 rupees.”

As far as possible, farmers do not cut trees. “But when
there’s a need for capital – for medical emergencies or a marriage in the
family – we choose a few big trees and sell them for timber,” explains K.
Pattusami, 47, a jackfruit farmer. “That fetches a couple of lakhs. Enough to
tide over the crisis, or take care of the kalyanam (wedding)…”

Before the logs reach Thanjavur, the finest portions are
kept aside for the mridangam, a percussion instrument. In Sebastian
and Sons: A brief history of Mrdangam* makers, T. M. Krishna (musician,
writer, speaker and Magsaysay awardee) profiles the unsung heroes who handcraft
the instrument. 

But first the instrument itself, the “mridangam 101” as
Krishna calls it. The mridangam is a “cylindrical two-faced drum, the primary
percussion instrument used in Karnatik* music performances and Bharatanatyam
recitals. Its body is a hollow resonating chamber fashioned from the wood of a
jackfruit tree.” The apertures on either end are fitted with three layers each
of hide. 

Jack wood is “the holy grail” of mridangams, writes
Krishna. “Its holiness is further enhanced if the jackfruit tree grows near a
temple. The wood is then exposed to the sounds of temple bells and Vedic
chants, and the resonance of an instrument made of such wood is, they say,
unmatched. Artists like Mani Iyer would go to any lengths to acquire wood from
an auspicious tree of this sort.”

Kuppusami Asari, a third generation instrument-maker in his
family, tells Krishna that “there is a belief that trees near a church or a
temple, or even a road where people walk and talk, or where bells toll, absorb
the vibrations and produce good sound.”

Krishna, though,
observes that “while mridangam artists believe Hindu temple bells and
chants are the magic ingredient, the woodcrafter is more catholic in his search
for these positive vibrations.”

In April 2022, I visited Panruti town to meet jackfruit
farmers and traders. In the afternoon, I walk into Kuppusami Asari&#39;s
busy workshop. It is at once modern (with lathes and machines) and traditional
(with old fashioned tools and photos of gods and goddesses), much like
Kuppusami’s attitude towards making the mridangam. 

“Go on, ask your questions,” Kuppusami says. He’s in a
hurry; he’s a busy man. “What do you
want to know?” Why jack wood, I ask. “Because palamaram is perfect,” he
says. “It is light weight and the nadam [tone] is very good. Here we
make all the percussion instruments, everything but the veenai.”
Kuppusami is a highly regarded expert. “You can read about us in T.M. Krishna’s
book,” he says proudly. “There is even a photo of me with the lathe.”

Kuppusami trained in Madhavaram, a suburb in Chennai, and
has “around 50 years of experience.” He began learning when he was 10 years
old, with little education, and a lot of interest in working with wood. “Back
then, all the work was done by hand. My father worked on the palamaram –
hollowing out the inside – by mounting it on a vandi sakkaram (cartwheel). Two men turned the wheel, and appa scraped the inside.” But the
family quickly adapted to technology. “We changed with the times.” 

Unlike many craftspersons, he is very excited about modern
machinery. “Look, then you took a whole day to dig out the centre of a mridangam.
Now with a lathe, it is quick, precise and efficient. And the finish is much
better.” He was the pioneer in using a lathe, in Panruti, and installed the
machine 25 years ago. Many people have taken this idea to other towns. 

“Plus,” he says. “I’ve taught four, five men to make
percussion instruments. When they’re fully trained, they set up shop and sell
it to the same retailer I supply in Mylapore, Chennai. They introduce
themselves as my apprentices. And that shopowner then calls and asks me: ‘Just
how many people have you trained?’” Kuppusami laughs when he tells me the
story.

His son Sabarinathan
has an engineering degree. “I told him to learn the measurements and how to make
instruments. Even if he has a job, he can continue this with hired labour,
isn’t it?”

“The Asaris are members of the Vishwakarma community. They are people of material art who work with metal, stone and wood. Away from their creative pursuits, many people in the community have been reduced to labour activities that are adjacent to their traditional caste-based occupations. Those in the younger generation are also moving away to white-collar jobs,” writes T.M. Krishna in his book Sebastian and Sons. “When we do speak of hereditary, caste-bound occupations, we have to be careful not to romanticise it as intergenerational continuity in knowledge creation, because all people and occupations are not equal in our social matrix,” Krishna points out. “Work that is passed down within caste-privileged families is considered knowledge and the perpetuation of such caste-limited sharing as preservation. And the practitioners do not experience oppression. Occupations and forms of work that are continued generation after generation within oppressed or marginalised communities are not considered knowledge. Nor are the people considered knowledge creators. They are looked down upon, undervalued and their work categorised as physical labour. And most importantly, those who practice these occupations experience caste-based oppression and violence. In many cases because of social circumstances they have no choice but to take up the family-caste-assigned job.”“All instrument makers in this country are
spoken about – if at all – in technical terms,” <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/tm-krishna-sebastian-and-sons-book-mrdangam-makers_in_5e26c356c5b674e44b9d6bf2?7pk">says Krishna</a>. “They’re looked at like a maestri [carpenter] who is working in a construction site. The [instrument] player would be the
architect. The reason credit is denied – or frugally and grudgingly given – is
because of caste.” 

Mridangam-making is male
dominated, says Kuppusami. “There are a few women who work with leather. But the wood work is
done solely by men. The wood that is sourced is typically from jackfruit trees
that have stopped fruiting. They will “close” the trees that are old and
unproductive,” Kuppusami says. “And for every ten they cut down, they plant
30.” 

Kuppusami has many specifications for the wood. He prefers
trees that are around 9 or 10 feet tall, wide and strong, and planted near the
fence or by the road. Ideally, he’d take the lower portion of the wood, with a
darker colour ensuring better resonance. 

In a single day, he can cut and size about six mridangams.
But the finishing will take two more days. His profits are minimal – he will be
happy if he can make 1,000 rupees on a mridangam, he says. That’s after paying “the labourers 1,000 to
work on this. It is heavy work, they won’t come otherwise, you know.” 

Wood is not available throughout the year. When the trees are
still fruiting, nobody will chop it down, he points out. So “I have to keep wood in stock,” he says. He
invests five lakh rupees, to buy 20 logs which cost 25,000 rupees each. And
that’s where he seeks intervention from the government. “If they gave us a
subsidy or loan, to buy the wood… that would be so good!” 

The demand for mridangams
is good, Kuppusami says, and comes from both domestic and international markets.
“In a month, I sell 50 mridangams and 25 tavils.” The trouble is
getting the right wood and seasoning it for about four months. And since
Panruti jack wood is “the best”, says Kuppusami, “there is heavy demand for
it.” And he attributes the tonal qualities to the red soil in the region.

“From a single ten-foot-long log – costing about 25,000 rupees – you can
cut only three good mridangams.” And every lot is mixed. Some of the wood
isn’t really cut out to make music. The best Kuppusami can salvage from them
are a small udukkai (a hand-held percussion instrument).

A good “kattai” costs “ettu rubaa”, Kuppusami
explains. He uses the word ‘kattai’ (wood or log) to denote the shell of
the mridangam. While “ettu rubaa” – literally eight rupees –
stands in for 8,000. This is “onaam number” (first quality), he says, and
customers will not return it. Otherwise, “if cracks develop in the wood, if the
nadam [sound] is not good, customers will surely bring it back!” 

Typically, the mridangam is 22 or 24 inches long.
These instruments are usually played with a microphone, he says. “For kuthu
[theatre], where it is played without a mike, the mridangam is 28 inches long.
And the mouth is narrow on one side and wide on the other. The beats can be
heard over a long distance as the sound travels very well.” 

Kuppusami delivers the wooden shell to musical companies in
Chennai. They place orders for 20 to 30 a month. And once they receive it, they
give it out to the leather workers who finish the mridangam. This
process adds another 4,500 rupees to the price. “Then there is the bag with the
zip,” Kuppusami explains, his hands fastening an imaginary zipper over a mridangam.


Good quality mridangams around cost 15,000 rupees. Kuppusami
remembers when they were sold for 50 and 75 rupees. “My father used to take me
to Mylapore, Madras (now Chennai), to deliver the mridangams to gurus.
They used to pay us in crisp currency notes! I was a little boy then,” he
smiles. 

Karaikudi Mani,
Umayalpuram Sivaraman – some of the greatest mridangam artists in the Carnatic
music world – have all sourced their instruments from Kuppusami. “So many vidwans (scholarly teachers and practitioners) come here and buy,” he says, with a
touch of pride. “This is a famous shop, traditional shop…”

Kuppusami shares several anecdotes related to the
percussion instrument. His stories are a superb contrast between the old and
the new. “Do you know the late Palghat Mani Iyer? His instruments were so
heavy, he had a person to carry it around for him!” And a hefty mridangam
was preferred because the sound was “ganeer, ganeer” (loud and clear).
Except, it’s not something the current crop aspire to all the time, Kuppusami
says. 

“When they travel abroad, they want a light instrument.
They bring it here, and I reduce its weight from 12 to six kilos.” How is that
possible, I ask. “We scrape out the wood in the belly,” he says. “We keep
weighing the instrument, until it’s down to six kilos.” 

A crash diet for mridangams, if you will… 

But it’s not just mridangams, he also sends other
percussion instruments around the world. “I have sent urumi melams [double-headed
drums] to Malaysia for the last 20 years. It’s only during covid that it
stopped…” 

Jack wood is perfect to make mridangam, tavil, tabela, veenai, kanjira, udukkai, udumi, pambai… Kuppusami lists the names. “I can make
about 15 varieties of percussion instruments.” 

He is acquainted with
craftspersons of other instruments. Some even by name and address. “Oh, you’ve
met Narayanan, the veenai maker? He lives in South Main street,
Thanjavur, isn’t it? He’s known to us.” Making the veenai is such a
tricky job, Kuppusami says. “One time, I watched a veenai being made.
The asari was making the curved stem. I sat quietly and observed him for
two hours. He cut and shaped and placed and checked and cut and shaped some
more… it was amazing. And exciting…”

I first met the veenai makers in Thanjavur in 2015,
in M. Narayanan’s workshop. In August 2023, he invited me to visit again. “Do
you remember the house? It’s the one with the tree outside,” he said. It may
seem like a peculiar landmark, but the Pungai tree (Indian Beech) is possibly
the only one on South Main street. A veenai made of cement graces the
first-floor façade. The workshop behind his house is just as I remember it:
tools on the cement shelf, photos and calendars on the wall, and unfinished veenais
on the floor. 

When the veenai comes from Sivagangai Poonga,
it is a stout and somewhat misshapen block of wood. Once it reaches the
workshop though, the tools change, the treatment changes, and naturally, so
does the result. From the 16-inch wide log with a scooped-out belly, Narayanan
and his team carve out a slim bowl that’s 14.5 inches across, with a half-an-inch
thick wall. He uses a compass, he explains, to get the circle. And then
carefully with a ulli (chisel), removes the extra wood. 

To make music, the wood undergoes intermittent sculpting.
The pauses help the wood dry and season. Shedding weight – inside and outside –
cuts down the size from the roughly 30 kilograms when it arrives in Thanjavur,
to 20, at Sivagangai Poonga. At the veenai pattarai, it is
further chiselled to a liftable eight kilos. 

Seated in his house, in front of the workshop, Narayanan
hands me a veenai. “Here,” he says, “hold it.” It has a good heft, and a
smooth finish, every part perfectly sanded and varnished. “It is all done by
hand,” Narayanan says, the pride evident in his voice. 

“Veenais are
made only in Thanjavur. And they go all over the world from here. We have a
Geographical Indication [GI] that was applied for and secured by advocate Sanjai
Gandhi,” says Narayanan.

This instrument is always made with jack wood. “It is
chosen because palamaram adapts to all climatic conditions. Thanjavur is
39 degrees [celsius] today. And when you make it here and take it to America, where it
might be zero degrees, it will still function properly. And even if you take it
to a hotter region – west Asia, for instance – nothing will happen. It
will play well everywhere. This is a rare quality, which is why we use jack wood.”

“You can’t do it in mango wood, for instance. In the
summer, a mango wood door can be shut. During the monsoon? You have to slam it
hard… Plus, no matter how much you finish it, you won’t get a &#39;nice&#39; look, the
likes of which you can get with jack.” Besides, palamaram has tiny pores, Narayanan explains, smaller than the hair on our head. “It helps the wood breathe.” 

Jack wood is widely grown. “But as far as I know, in some
areas – around Pattukottai [Thanjavur district] and Gandharvakottai [Pudukottai
district] – they have cut many of the
trees. And not planted others in its place. The owners of the groves have sold
their land as housing plots, and put the money in the bank. Without trees,”
Narayanan points out, “there is not even a little shadow. Forget music. Look at
my street, there is just my tree…all the others were chopped!”

New jackwood is
yellow. As it ages and dries, it gets a reddish tinge. And the vibration of the
wood is brilliant. That’s why, Narayanan says, old veenais are sought
after. “And that’s why,” he laughs, “you never get them in the market, as the owners
prefer to restore, repair and retain their instruments. Usually within the
family.”

In the veenais that he makes, Narayanan adds some
modern touches. “See this guitar key, we put them in so that it is easier to
tune and tighten the strings.” He’s not excited about the changes in teaching,
though; he calls them short-cuts (when teachers don’t teach the students how to
fix the pitch), and he tunes a veenai as he explains it. The jack wood
and metal string produce a beautiful sound, a background score for our
conversation. 

Like many of the makers, Narayanan too can play the
instrument he crafts. “Only a little bit,” he says modestly, plucking the strings with his right
hand, his left fingertips moving up and down the frets. “I know enough to
understand what the customer wants.” 

On his lap is an Ekantha veenai, made from a single
piece of wood. He holds it carefully, like a mother would a sleeping child.
“Once upon a time, we used deer antlers for decoration. Now it is Ivory Plastic
from Bombay…” 

If just one person
were to make a veenai fully, it would take 25 days. “That’s why we give
different jobs to different people and assemble it faster. And we can make two
or three veenais a month. Each of them can cost anywhere between 25,000
to 75,000 rupees.”

Like the other veenai makers, Narayanan sources his
wood from Panruti. “Either we go there and buy a ‘lot’, or they bring it here. Forty or 50-year-old trees, that are mature, are ideal. Traders might sell us a 10-foot
log for 20,000 rupees, from which we can make an Ekantha veenai. There is some
room for negotiation. Once we buy it, we get it sized and then shaped at the
association space at Sivagangai Poonga.” Wood, however, is risky
business, says Narayanan. “Sometimes there could be small cracks which will
allow water to enter the tree and spoil it. We won’t know until we actually cut
the log!” 

Narayanan estimates that there are 10 full time veenai makers
in Thanjavur and many more who work on it part time. Together they make about
30 veenais a month. From the time a log of wood reaches Thanjavur, it
takes about 30 days for it to become an instrument. “There is definitely a good
demand,” says Narayanan. “Many big artists like Chittibabu and Sivanandham have bought from my father.
The new crop of student artists are also very interested. But most of them buy
from ‘musicals’ in Chennai. Some come here directly and ask for a particular
design or customisation.” And Narayanan loves that. 

What he would love better is if the business thrives. “I’ve
done this work for 45 years. My two sons don’t want to get into this. They are
educated and have jobs. Do you know why?” The pause is filled with pathos.
“This mason,” he points to the person working in his house, “earns 1,200 rupees
a day. And I buy him two vadais and tea on top of that, twice a day. But
for the meticulous work we do, the earning is half of that. There is no rest,
no timing. Sure, it is a good business, but only the middlemen seem to make
money. My workshop is 10 foot by 10. You saw it right? Everything is done by
hand. And yet we get commercial rates for electricity. We tried telling the
authorities it is a cottage industry – but we are not able to make any
representations and sort it out…” 

Narayanan sighs. Behind his house, in the workshop, an old
craftsman sands down a kudam. With chisels, drills and blades, slowly, he
makes the jack wood sing…

This research study is funded by Azim Premji University as part of its Research Funding Programme 2020. 

Goad* - a metal tool carried by the mahout, it
guides the elephant to move/behave in a certain way Mrdangam* - also spelt as mridangam Karnatik* - also spelt as Carnatic [classical
music]

The sweet music of jack wood

کٹہل کی لکڑی سے پیدا ہونے والی مترنم موسیقی

ਕਟਹਲ ਦੀ ਲੱਕੜ 'ਚੋਂ ਉਪਜੇ ਮਿੱਠਾ ਸੰਗੀਤ

ପଣସ କାଠର ସୁମଧୁର ସଂଗୀତ

പ്ലാവിന്റെ മധുരസംഗീതം

ಹಲಸಿನ ಮರದ ಮಧುರ ಸಂಗೀತ

कटहल की लकड़ी का मधुर संगीत

ફણસના ઝાડના લાકડાનું મધુર સંગીત

कटहर लकरी ले निकरत सुग्घर संगीत

सुनीं कटहल के गाछ के मीठ धुन!

কাঁঠাল কাঠ কুঁদে সুরের ঝংকার তোলে কাদের দুই-হাত?

কঁঠাল কাঠত সুৰৰ ঝংকাৰ

பலாமரத்தின் இன்னிசை

Thanjavur

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The sweet music of jack wood

Many of India’s iconic musical instruments are made from the wood of the jackfruit tree, grown across Tamil Nadu. The highly skilled makers in Panruti and Thanjavur coax ragam and rhythm from its timber

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