Attention to details
Recently, I got an opportunity to watch a skilled laborer work on a temple. Now, this is just a little temple for an apartment complex. Only when I was watching him work, did I realize that all of the intricate work is done free-hand! He was working with skill and patience, and literally carving the wet cement to create the patterns.
Notice the real nice, intricate patters. Yep, free-hand! Beautiful, eh?
I overheard this man talking with another one in his clan about having passports and needing to fly. Quite clearly, these skilled laborers have opportunities abroad.
Awesome is just the word for these guys, their skill and craft. BTW, am off to Tanjore early next month just to see and take snaps of the Big Temple!
Very nice photographs. Usually only the person (or the king) commissioning the temple is mentioned…and never the artisans and craftsmen who actually put in their labours and creativity into the temple!
I do wish you had been able to show the face of the craftsman…but perhaps it is quite symbolic that it is dark..only his work can be seen!
Tooo good, nice find.
Simply amazing piece of craftmanship.
Thanks for the pics.
I however wonder how such skills get passed from one generation to another, in the absence of any kind of support from the government, and survive the onslaught of increasingly westernized and globalized culture.
Nice post and observation Chitra.
Actually Rao saheb, the craftsmen do get to work in the West nowadays ;-) Many of the American temples are very Indianized it seems. And the workers get to stay there for long periods of time. As Chitra mentioned they were talking about passports :-) Globalization and the world is flat, eh!
Now THAT’S skilled labour, if I’ve ever seen it!
Beautiful!
-Robert
Thanks! Let me pass on your compliments to the worker too.
What Mytri says about the temples in the US is true. They are all done up so well, that they absolutely need skilled laborers from here to do the job.
Chitra, I feel deeply honoured, that you’re passing the comments on to these fantastic artists. :)
That’s one of the beauties of the internet!
-Robert