In Tamil Nadu's Venkatanayakanpatti village, families uphold the ancient craft of brass bell making through the lost-wax casting technique. These bells, vital for Tamil folk dances and rural sports like jallikattu, emerge from a precise 35-step process in home forges.
Venkatanayakanpatti, located 56 km from Tiruchi in Tamil Nadu, hosts family-run forges that craft brass bells using traditional methods. These bells, producing a distinctive 'jal-jal' sound, serve as salangai or ghungroo for dancers in folk performances or as adornments for animals in rural sports like jallikattu.
Shankar and his relatives form clay paste balls, each weighing about 65 grams, from riverbed soil and resins. These are dipped in melted beeswax and castor oil, then coated with more paste before baking in batches of 24 or 36. Molten brass is poured in, melting the wax to form the bells. Rasammal, Shankar's wife, breaks open the molds with a hammer, removes the burned clay, and inserts small steel balls to create the tinkle. The clay is reused, and Shankar's son deburrs the edges with a machine.
Azhagar Kumar, a fifth-generation artisan, notes that sunlight is essential for drying, taking two weeks for a 200-300 kg batch. Raw materials come from Madurai, with brass costing over ₹600 per kg, often sourced from scrap like old stove burners or locks. Orders arrive year-round from Tiruchi, Pudukottai, and Madurai for Pongal, jallikattu, and festivals.
This craft preserves the lost-wax casting technique, traceable to the Harappan civilization. As J Raja Mohamed, former curator, explains, South India uses solid casting for idols, while the hollow method here produces lighter items like bells, with each piece unique as molds are destroyed post-casting. Once boasting over 20 forges, the village now has about five, strained by rising costs—₹12,000 per order excluding brass, with slim profits after overheads.
Ponnammal mentions peak demand in the Tamil month of Thai for livestock bells, alongside those for silambam and temple bells weighing 5 to 50 kg. Shankar hopes his children will continue the trade, now reaching foreign markets via resellers.