Grinding stone sounds too English. So let’s stick to
Ammikkallu. Those who do not know how it looks like let me explain: it is a
flat granite block measuring a width of a foot and length of one and half feet.
There is one cylindrical granite piece which is used as a roller to grind the
spices and coconut to make the spicy paste and chutneys. Grinding stone or
Ammikallu is a very primitive tool that came from the nomadic tribes to the
kitchens of the settled family units and it remained as an important kitchen
device for many centuries till mixers (called mixies) and grinders replaced
them. Grinding stones are of different types and are still used by the rural
people and also the nomadic people who live in temporary shacks in the abandoned
plots. The name Ammikkallu comes from Tamil, where Ammi/Amma means mother and
Kallu means stone. But in the rural parlance it used to have more intimate
terms which conjoin both the pieces in a familial relationship. The granite
slab was called Thallakkallu (Mother Stone) and roller was called Pillakkallu
(Child Stone). So that means it is cryptic and symbolic form of our art
historical Mother and Child. Looking deeply into the history of it I could say
that this is an unbroken link from the Neolithic ages.
When I was a child, when there were no boundary walls
between plots where houses stood, I could hear the music of Ammikkallu from
different houses and could easily say which woman was now grinding spices.
Ammikkallu were like heirlooms; it came with the making of a new house. Or the
parents gave away their favourite stones to their children who made new houses.
These grinding stones were not like other kitchen utensils which were renewed
almost every year. The cooking pots were renewed with the annual village fair,
spoons and paddles were changed annually. But these grinding stones stayed like
the cave art of any place. But there was something interesting about these.
Each grinding stone was different from the ‘music’ it made while in use.
Granite stones have a particular tendency; if you use it for a long time, the
timbre and tone of it would change and more subtle and sharp voices would come
out of it. That’s why in the old granite temples, the vertical pillars develop
a ‘sense of music’ over a period of several centuries. There were also master
stone cutters who could actually tune in the seven musical notes into these
pillars. Grinding stones were not different.
Thanks to daily use, these Ammikkallus generated music.
While playing I could tell whether it was coming from my grandmother’s kitchen
or from my mother’s kitchen. My mother’s grinding stone was rather new and it
generated the noises of her impatience, irritation and anger for my father or
his mother who stayed in the next house. But my paternal grandmother’s grinding
stone was old, perhaps came to her from her mother and was like a smooth piece
of granite slab with a slender roller with the smoothness of the idols and
sculptures in the South Indian temples. When she worked on it, it created a
twinkling sound which was very musical to us, even if my grandmother had not
connection with music, but often evoked rebukes from my mother from this
kitchen. I could also tell which housewife in the neighbourhood was now using
her grindstone because all of us, children had access to any kitchen without
anybody’s permission. At times we would be jumping over these hapless mothers
and grandmothers while they worked in kitchen and we played in abandonment.
As time changed, the position of the Ammikkallu was ‘raised’
inside the kitchen. In those good old days women used to sit on the floor as
the grinding stones were placed on the kitchen floor. These were the occasion
where we children got to know how female shanks looked like for to sit on the
floor and work at these grinding stone women had to roll up their lungis upto
the knees. Though there was no sexual feeling to it, the sight of the smooth
skins used to send electric vibrations inside many a boy who had seen such
scenes. With the arrival of modernity and the changes happened in the general
architectural modes, the grinding stones were elevated to the kitchen slabs so
that women could stand and work at the grinding stones. Then came the period of
mixers. It was early 1980s. There was no television but the magazines were filled
with the advertisements of mixers. The first one to conquer the Kerala market
then was Sumeet Mixie. Having a Sumeet Mixie at home was like having an SUV in
front of your house. Shops and co-operative societies started selling these
mixies on instalment. Soon the sonic ambience of my living surroundings
changed. It was a sort of grating and irritating noise that went on for quite
some time and subsided with the turning of the regulators.
There was a period when people had to live with both the
grinding stone and the mixies. Human beings are like that. Perhaps because of
emotional attachment or because of utmost pragmatism most of the people do not
throw away the old habits all of a sudden. When they have new utensils and
equipment at home, they continue to use the old and the new devices. It was
visible when the STD telephone came in India. People where happy with the snail
mail and they could wait for ten to fifteen days for even intimate
communications. Telecom revolution changed the way people communicated in early
1990s. However, people refused to leave the old inland letters, post cards and
airmails behind. It took some time people to switch completely to the new mode.
Same thing is visible even today when people go to the banks to make entries in
their passbooks. Even if everything is digital, seeing the amount in a printed
book makes people reassured about their savings. Grinding stones also went
through this period of mixed use. People refuse to leave their old companions
behind. But mixies made the works of women easier so eventually they had to
discard the grinding stones and along with it the physical exertion that was a
part of making spices.
Women were strong when they were using traditional kitchen
utensils. Each work had given them enough exercise for their muscles exactly
the working class men got their daily exercise. But with the increase in
education, with more women going out for work, with eased working atmosphere at
home (mixies, grinders, readymade batter, ready chapattis, washing machine,
driers, vacuum cleaners and so on) women too have now become the victims of
life style diseases. The negative fallout of all these changes is this that
while men find alternative exercise regimes in gyms and parks women are driven
to kitchens once again and to the television sets making them lead absolutely
unhealthy lives. Unfortunately except in big cities and big towns we do not
have gyms for women in the rural areas. Even if someone dare to do some
physical exercise in public, if she is not officially in the sport sector her
exercising regime would not be largely appreciated by the families and public.
True that girl children have gained increased mobility by using cycles and
motor cycles, but again once they are married their exercise is reduced to
kitchen work or general running around doing errands at home.
I am not a propagator of old utensils or tools. I could only
look back with a sort of nostalgia and think culturally how these changes have
affected our living styles. The major change that I observe by the retreating
of these old utensils is in the architecture sector. Whether we accept it or
not, everything in a society is intricately connected and in a very complex
fashion, therefore discussing anything in an isolated fashion would yield only
fallacious results. For examples, we cannot isolate the removal of grinding
stones from our kitchens and discuss it as a part of the arrival of a new
technology called mixies and grinders which are electrically driven. It has to
be seen as a part of the general economic growth, education and the change in
approach towards life. It also changes the equations in the gender relations
though not in a very visible way. Grinding stones were in a way a sort of
stones around the necks of the women. If you see, the traditional societies
where women were supposed to do the manual works, were always connected
something made of granite or stone in general. The worshiped at the stone
edifices, they washed the clothes on the washing stones, made batter in the
grinding stones, drew water from wells standing on the stone planks, women even
urinated with their legs placed on a pair of stones. The stone therefore
becomes symbolic of their cowing down by the burden of the household works.
Hence, the arrival of the mixers should have been welcomed wholeheartedly by
women in those days.
Definitely, the stone became soft as far as women were
concerned. One after another life style products came into the houses via the
television advertisement. This was what exactly happened in 1950s in the United
States of America. The soap operas (the present day television serials) were
created for selling soap powder. Women watched these sob stories and watched
the advertisement where beautiful looking women keeping the homes so clean and impeccable
only to receive their job-worn husbands with a smile, a deep kiss rising on the
toes and then a cup of tea. The clothes that he wore should go straight into
the washing machine. So washing machine became the central theme of happiness
for women and to use washing machine you needed soap powder. That mean with the
advent of each commercial product women all over the world become the slaves of
it; only difference is that the heaviness of granite stone is changed into the
softness of the products and the sentimental anchoring of women to home and
relationships. This has reflected in the making of architecture too. Women,
like Virginia Woolf had once asked, never ask for a separate room for
themselves anymore. Instead they ask for a place to keep the washing machine, a
power point for the mixie, a double door refrigerator, a separate work area for
kitchen so that the kitchen also could be flaunted the way they do with the
drawing rooms.
With the grinding stones going out of focus certain jobs
also ceased to exist. There used to be stone cutters travelling from one place
to another, making grinding stones and selling it in the local market. They
have stopped now moving or working in large scale. There used to be people
coming from unknown places by cycle calling out ‘Ammi kothaanundo Ammi’
(Anybody wants their grinding stones to be tended?). This maintenance of the
grinding stones is done by making pin point incisions on the surface so that
the surface of the stone remains a bit rough, making the grinding fast and
fine. These men and women who used to make these stones ‘rough’ did it with
such care and love that they made floral patterns on the grinding stones and
the stone rolling pin. They took a paltry sum and some snacks and left. It took
another year for them to come back as they know that those stones did not need
weekly tending. There are so many trades and jobs like this that have gone into
oblivion. However, I remember these stones with fondness and the music of those
grinding stones still take me back to the good old days when boys and girls ran
through many kitchens in the villages.
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