P. Chenbagasekara Pillai, of Thuvarangadu, a fertile village in the northern part of Kanniyakumari, has a unique passion for agricultural tools. He has collected over 80 storage structures, sickles, Sulakus (fans) for winnowing and other tools that have become redundant with the mechanisation of agriculture following the Green Revolution. These implements were an integral part of manual labour and use of cattle. As agriculture is his family vocation, he retained the tools used by his forefathers and collected from others who no longer used them.
Though Thuvarangadu is a typical Nanjil Nadu village, surrounded by paddy fields and banana and coconut groves, gone are the days when the daily schedule of a farmer would start in the early hours of a day. From cleaning the cattle shed; feeding cows; milking them; taking bulls and buffaloes to field for ploughing and levelling; bathing them in local tanks or rivers; shifting the organic manure collected in the backyard of the house to the field in a bullock cart; harvesting the crops and bringing them home for threshing and winnowing; and finally keeping them in storage structures called Pathayam or Kuthir, the life of a farmer was intertwined with agriculture till some years ago. Now, the backyards or Kalams used for winnowing are either covered with concrete or built over. Immediately after the harvest, the produce is sold to farmers in the field itself. Today, nothing comes to the house of the farmer, even the haystack as very few keep cattle and buy milk in plastic pockets.
“I started collecting the implements from the 1980s as I wanted to preserve them for the posterity,” says Mr. Pillai, whose old Nanjil Naatu style house with a front courtyard (Muttram) continues to stand amid concrete houses at Thuvarangadu. He is so popular that the Government Agriculture College at Kallikulam in Tirunelveli and the Agriculture College and Research Institute in Madurai send their students to intern with him for a month to learn the old practices of agriculture.
Measuring the flow of water
Among his collection is Ooni, which has disappeared from the collective memory of everyone. It is a tool used for irrigating the field. “My father used to measure the water in terms of Ooni and would always ask how many Ooni had flown into the field,” he recalled. There is also Eraivatti for draining water; Paathala Karanti (a bunch of hooks) for fishing out objects from the well; Pillai Kampu that was used to hold cradles for the babies of women working the field; Kottams for giving medicine to cattle depending on their weight; and bells for decorating them.
Specific woods for tools
Mr. Pillai, a graduate who worked for a brief period outside before returning to take up agriculture full time, said farmers adopted time-tested methods. “They used specific woods for making agricultural tools. Three different types of woods — teak, Pinnai (Alexandrian Laurel) and Vagai (rain tree) — were used for making different parts of a plough. The rope for tying them together was made of buffalo hide.”
The leveller, made from the rain tree (because the wood is heavy), was normally used when farmers opted for dry sowing. The levelling of the ground for wet sowing would be done by the implement made from Ilavam (sliver cotton tree), known for its water-resistance.
“Farmers in the northern part of Kanniyakumari use the wood of Unnu for making the handles for spades as the plant is available in plenty in the nearby forests. Unnu finds reference in the Sangam literature. In some parts, the wood of guava trees is used. The advantage with Unnu is that it will not hurt the hands of farmers,” he said. The wood of Maavilangu was preferred for making the handle of the sickle for cutting grass.
All measuring tools
Mr. Pillai has in his collection almost all the measuring tools: Marakkal, Pakka, Ulakku, Azhakku and Maakani. “There are five types of Marakkal, which is used for measuring the paddy,” he said. Poli Marakkal would be used to measure the paddy harvested from the field. Tenants of a piece of land would use Paatam Marakkal to give the share to the owner of the land. Kotthu Marakkal is for measuring paddy to give remuneration to labourers. Pakirvu Marakkal would be used to repay the paddy borrowed from others. Nel Cheetu Marakkal is for sharing the paddy among the members of a chit fund.
The house of farmers used to have a Pathayam (granary made of wood), Kuthir or Kulukkai for storing the paddy. While Pathayams in most of the houses have been dismantled, Kuthir and Kulukkai are still kept by some. “Kulukkai retained the germinating capacity of the seeds for years,” said Mr. Pillai, who would display the tools during Pongal.
His stall was the cynosure at ‘Velan Sangamam’, organised by the Agriculture Department in Tiruchi recently. Government officials and a lot of people who visited his stall have offered to help him maintain his collection.
Passion for agriculture keeps him going while others have opted for other avocations as cultivation of paddy is not lucrative. It no more offers the status it once did. “Today, none will consider a farmer as a bridegroom for their daughter. It is a hand-to-mouth existence as the input costs have increased substantially. I am sustaining because I am doing it as a full-time job and supplementing it with coconut farming,” says Mr. Pillai, one of the last farmers following the ancient tradition.
