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Kondapalli Bommalu - The making

white poNiki

Bavujali

Palapu chekka & makku

Shaping with bavujali

Kondapalli Bommalu are made from the wood of ‘tella poniki’ (Can anybody tell us what it is called in English, please?). This wood is chosen because it is lightweight and soft. You can cut through the wood with an ordinary table knife. This wood is found in the forest nearby Kondapalli. The freshly cut wood is chopped into manageable pieces and dried in the sun for 10 days.

The wood is hand carved into the shapes that are needed to build the toy. A tool called ‘Bavujali’ is used for this purpose. Once all the pieces are made, they are stuck together to form the skeleton of the toy that is being made. Traditionally ‘tumma jiguru’ (English, anyone?) was used to glue the parts together, but recently commercial adhesives such as Fevi-cal are being used.

skeleton

With makku

This skeleton of the toy has rough and square edges. These edges are rounded to give the toy a smooth body by applying ‘makku’. To make ‘makku’ tamarind seeds are ground into a fine powder and boiled in water until it becomes a smooth paste. This makku is applied using a tool called ‘palapu chekka’. ‘palapu chekka’ is a thin and smooth piece that fits comfortably in one’s hand. ‘palapu chekka’ is made by filing a cow’s horn into a smooth oval.

After the ‘makku’ dries completely, the toy resembles the final shape with smooth edges and all basic components, but it is not finished yet. The final shape of the toy is brought by applying a coat of lime('sudda') mixed with ‘tumma jiguru’. A thick coat of lime is skillfully applied carving the final shape of the toy. The toy is left to dry until the lime coat dries.

A family applying 'sudda'

First coat of primar

All the tasks until this point are done by men in the family. Normally at this point, women of the family take the charge and finish the toy. First a coat of primer, a base for coloring the toy, is applied. After the primer dries, colors are patiently applied to each toy. It takes about 20 minutes to apply all the colors to a mid-sized toy. The colors are applied with a brush made of goat hair.

It takes several weeks make these brightly colored pieces from a log of wood. As we can see from the procedure described, at each stage the toy is carefully hand crafted. Hours of manual labor goes into each toy we see and enjoy today.

Women applying colors to each toy

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