A son's love for his mother....

I have this habit of planning quick road trips at every opportunity that I get and the 17th Sept weekend was one such opportunity. We took a day's leave on 18th Sep'15.
We left Kandivali Lokhandwala at 6:30 hrs and quickly headed towards the Nashik - Aurangabad route.
I had booked Oyo rooms for the 1st time at Aurangabad.
The plan, am sure is evident...just to clarify, we had decided to cover Ajanta & Ellora apart from Aurangabad.

So off we headed and made a quick stop just before Igatpuri to grab a quick breakfast that we were carrying and have a brew of Davidoff...the first time we were carrying a Thermos flask with hot water and coffee separately. Boy! Was it fun!

It being the end of Monsoon, the weather was foggy in these parts and light streaming through the clouds made it dreamy...

Off we headed, driving through the Nashik - Sinnar route to reach Aurangabad around 3:00 pm.
It was the day of Ganesh Chaturthi and the roads at Nashik were crowded...but after a little effort we managed to snake out stopping for a quick lunch just before Aurangabad.

We checked into the Hotel at Aurangabad into an Oyo room and after a little lazing around and a cup of coffee, decided to complete the places within Aurangabad.

We headed towards the most important monument at Aurangabad - Bibi ka Maqbara (Bibi's tomb). Although we knew it was a replica of the Taj Mahal, the similarity still amazed us. We reached around 5:30 in the evening and it was still day light.

We stared at the monument for a while and then walked towards it, clicking shots from different angles. One of my favourites is down below -

As we kept meandering around the monument, I kept looking at the people around me and their expressions. People talking about it being the "Poor man's Taj Mahal", some talking about it as a tribute by Aurangzeb to his wife trying to imitate Shah Jahan.

The actual fact is that it was built by Azam Shah - Aurangazeb's son in memory of his mother - Dilras Banu Begum.

It is said that Aurangzeb was an extremely austere king. He believed in using the people's money for the welfare of the state, rather than for his own personal desires or that of his kin.

His austerity led him to carry out many atrocities on the people and he abhorred the fact that his father spent lavishly on building monuments and epithets for personal pleasure.

Aurangzeb is also known to have earned his own bread and butter by writing miniatures of the Quran in calligraphic Arabic and making skull caps and selling them.

It is due to this austerity, that the Bibi ka Maqbara turned out to be a poor replica of The Taj as the budget sanctioned was only 7 lakhs during that period and they had to cut down the use of marble and use limestone instead on the minarets.

There was something very tranquil about this place and as dusk settled in, we decided to just sit it out for a while at this place. There was a slight drizzle and while we took shelter to protect our equipment, we kept looking at the monument to see it in the changing evening colours. It wasn't very fruitful, because coloured lighting from the entrance of the monument was not helpful in any way - neither was it lighting up the monument nor was it giving enough light to capture a good picture.

After a lot of trial and error, this was the best we could come up with.

A couple of images of the work visible on the monument- 

The view of the front of the monument

After spending about 3 hrs at this place, we headed back to the Hotel, eagerly awaiting the next day as we had planned The Ajanta caves.

Little did we know.....a new unimaginable adventure awaited us!

Aranmula - a lost tradition?

Mirror, mirror on the wall......and you shatter and fall!

Have you heard of a metal mirror?

 

Aranmula is a United Nations global heritage town in the Pathanamthitta district of Kerala. Its at a distance of about 115 kms from Thiruvananthapuram. While the town has to its claim to fame - the famous Aranmula Parthasarathy temple, Valla Sadhya, Uttaratadhi Jala Mela - my interest in the town was due its famous Aranmula Kannadi or Aranmula Mirror.

 

Unlike traditional mirrors, the Aranmula Kannadi is made of Tin - Bronze alloy.

 

The alloy is made into a ball (depending on the size of the mirror to be made) and is encased in a clay mould - indicated below.

The metal ball is placed at the blob on the top. The clay is fashioned below into a hollow mould (as per the diameter of the mirror).

Vikash explaining the making of the mirror

The clay is baked to high temparatures and because of the heat, the metal liquefies and falls into the hollow mould taking the shape of a round metal plate. The clay is then cooled and broken (using just enough pressure so as to not damage the metal) to bring out a metal round shape which is uniform all across (shown below) 

 

The metal is then polished and shined to make a reflective surface which acts like a mirror with one side being opaque. Unlike regular mirrors, these are supposed to eliminate secondary reflections and aberrations typical of back surface mirrors.

 

The finished mirror is then set in traditionally designed frames and depending on the size of the mirror is either hand held / mounted on a pedestal or on a stand.

 

Conch shaped frames to hold the finished mirror

 

 The mother - son duo of Arundathy and Vikash - traditional family involved in the making of the Aranmula Kannadi.

 

 



Place of work and tools of the trade -

 

The area where clay is moulded (its not as simple as it seems)

The clay baking furnace

 



This family is one of the few, traditional makers of the Aranmula Kannadi left, trying to continue an ancient art.

 

 

 

Aranmula Kannadi - unlike regular mirrors are slightly on the expensive side.

 

A finished product of the size indicated above costs between INR2500 to INR3000. It takes about 3-4 days to make 1 mirror of the size indicated above.

 

Personally I think they are reasonably priced for the effort and quality that goes into the making of the mirror.

 

Keralites traditionally use this mirror during festivals and on auspicious occasions. Its part of a Keralite bride's wedding trousseau. 

 

Beware - There are imitations that are available off the shelf at the same price - do not get fooled!

Note - The Aranmula Kannadi is GI patent tagged and so cannot be produced anywhere else other than its place of origin - Aranmula.