Nostalgia: Punkah, the manually operated ceiling fan

Imagine hot summer nights and days before there was electricity? Hand held fans were fine when one was awake and doing nothing. Or one could have a servant doing the fanning. But it would generate only limited air movement barely sufficient for the face and the torso.

The alternative was a punkah. Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines it as “a fan used especially in India that consists of a canvas-covered frame suspended from the ceiling and that is operated by a cord”.

Operating the fan was done by servants known as punka wallahs taking turns. The cord would be passed through a pulley on a door or wall. Drawing on the line moved the fan to and fro, creating air circulation.

Originally the punkahs were made of bamboo or light wood frames and Palmyra leaves. They were portable in case the sahib or the lord wanted to, say, sit under a tree. Then wooden frames suspended on the ceiling indoors with canvas or thick cloth to sweep the air, were introduced.


Not only the palaces and the bungalows but also churches in India had punkahs, rows of them. The New York Times dated January 6, 1884 carried an interesting report on the subject. You can read it at:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9806E0DA1538E033A25755C0A9679C94659FD7CF

How many generations of punkah wallahs have passed on after spending their lives tugging the ropes of the punkahs? What thoughts went through their minds while sitting outside an office chamber during the day, or bedroom at nights, silently carrying on the monotonous chore hour after hour?

Most of them were men of honor. Many secrets, heard, seen, while keeping their masters comfortable, went along with them as they vanished into history.

[The photographs (copyright reserved) are from the ancestral home of the Thekkanattu Parayil Tharakans at Olavipe, Kerala. Click on them for enlarged view.]

Ends.

Also see:

Nostalgia: A clock of time

Olakkuda – Palmyra leaf umbrella

Lions that guard Thekkanattu Parayil