The symbol of Agrarian Kerala...

Out of the great memories getting wiped off from our memories, the most significant is the scene of the bullock carts moving through our roads, aren’t they? Along with them a culture, a tradition of our villages, also gets erased from our lives. Now everything is undergoing vibrant change and so the bullock carts too. A workshop, Nataraj Industrial, in Meenakshipuram village of Palakkad district is one such which is gradually changing its purpose from the making of the bullock carts to the manufacturing of ready-for-use vehicles.

Meenakshipuram village is one among the remote area in the Palakkad district famous for the making of bullock carts. But now-a-days the number of people who structure bullock carts has gone down even in these regions. Natarajan and his brother Selvaraj are those people in the village who are still betrothed in the manufacturing of the bullock carts. “Nowadays none wants the bullock carts and so I started industrial works along with the manufacturing of the bullock carts” says Natarajan, the owner of the Nataraj industrials.

Teak, vaaga, karivelakam are some of the trees which is used for the manufacturing the bullock carts. However, at present, different types of trees are used for manufacturing.  It will take a month’s time for the manufacturing if the work is properly done.  There are some set of formulas before it is done. The crafting should start on an appropriate day.  They will start the working of wheels from the midpoint. There are some calculations while they make the wheels. Then the ring of the wheel with wood will be made along with an iron ring for strength to the cart. After the completion of the wheel work, they start with the work of the cart.

There are different types of carts like the bullock cart, rickshaw cart, horse cart etc.  But these days the government had passed an order which disrupts the making of the wooden wheels for their carts.  “We the people, who find the income from this job, are being affected with the government’s order. Because the roads get easily damaged by the use of the wheels made of iron and wood, we have to find other means of living” says Jayaprakash, son of Natarajan, who helps his father.  This order reduced these peoples income, so they are forced to look for other jobs.  Now they get work like the manufacturing of the horse carts, more from the tourist places.

Once, the bullock carts were the pride symbol of the agricultural Kerala. The people, who even now are behind the construction of bullocks carts are still working with it to get back the memories of the pride agricultural Kerala.