Chakla Baran - Notes and references so far

'Chakla' is a small round platform usually made of marble or wood, the 'belan' is a wooden rolling pin; the two are used to roll out the dough to make various Indian breads such as chapattis, paratha, bhatura, poori and roti.
The above dough based staples make the chakla belan indispensible in an Indian kitchen. Modern electronic versions are available, one known as a Roti Maker, which combine the chakla, belan and tava (used to cook the breads). However most households still use the traditional utensils of chakla and baran.

When doing this research (so far) the lack of information is rather strange. Past a basic definition there is hardly any publicly accessible information on the origins of these kitchen utensils. So below is a compilation of notes and further references to continue with.

History of related food types:
Chapatti:
Chapatti is so common throughout South Asia and parts of Africa that in first internet searching I can filter very little useful information, except that they are related to many languages (Hindi, local dialects and Urdu; Urdu suggests the ancient origins of the utensils).
Paratha:
"The paratha was conceived in ancient north India but it is unclear which particular north Indian cuisines actually inspired it. Its origin is likely to have been a result of several influences (Sindhi, Punjabi, Garhwali, Bihari, Bengali and so on)." [http://www.answers.com/topic/paratha-1]
Bhatura
Poori
Roti

Origins of Chakla Baran
Within history (www.harrapa.com) state utensils fall into a category of "important and virtually unknown archaeological remains of the Indus Valley civilization (2600-1900 B.C.). The ancient technologies of Harrapan culture are different to other civilisations of the time(Egypt etc). "These differences can be attributed to the fact that each civilization evolved from local cultures which have roots extending back to the earliest Neolithic farming and pastoral communities, dating in Pakistan and India to around 6500B.C." [http://www.harappa.com/indus/industext.html].

According to the Infinity Foundation the chakla belan originated in the Harrapan era, or even before. Harrappa existed around 3300BC lasting until 1600BC within what now is Punjab and was part of the Indus Valley and Cemetery H civilisations [wikipedia]. This civilisations were highly organised and were centred in regional cities and towns around crossroads and rich agricultural areas. Farmers were cultivating wheat and barley as early as 6500BC which suggests that these were staple food items and would have had to be prepared in some manner that may have included early forms of the Chakla Baran. The spread of the technology would have been helped by the large trade networks within the Indus Valley civilisation and later with Aryans (to the rest of India).

Problems of History
The Infitinity Foundation are a group who are looking to create an encyclopedia of Indian Science & Technology in response to a belief that "intellectual repositioning has not yet been achieved for India, which is still depicted based on the “caste, cows and curry” images too often. Indian culture is frequently depicted as being mystical in the sense of being irrational, and in lacking a sense of advancement in the material plane of society." [http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_pr/t_pr_book_projects.htm]
This lack of a formulated history of culture, objects, methods, changes and consistencies really does present a problem within this project. The greater implications are the impact on identity and culture today, particularly in the age of globalisation and a rapidly changing face of India.

Further references to look up are:
Kenoyer, J.M., 1997, Trade and Technology of the Indus Valley: New insights from Harrappa Pakistan, World Archaeology, 29(2), pp. 260-280, High definition archaeology
Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark (1991). "The Indus Valley tradition of Pakistan and Western India". Journal of World Prehistory 5: 1–64. doi:10.1007/BF00978474.
Library of Congress: Country Studies. 1995. Harrappan Culture. Retrieved 13 January 2006.
Rau, Santha Rama and the Editors of Time-Life Books. 1969. The Cooking of India. Time-Life Books, New York. TIME-LIFE BOOKS, New York.
Barer-Stein, Thelma. 1999. You EatWhat You Are. A FireFly Book, [GT 2850 .B371 1999]

Museum of Everyday Art

It may also be useful for you to look at the collections of the Museum of Everyday Art. The website address is http://www.sanskritifoundation.org/
This museum is in Delhi and was established in 1984. Objects of everyday life connected with the manners and customs, beliefs and practices of the urban and rural populations of India are displayed in the Sanskriti Museum of Everyday Art. There is a catalogue of the collections written by Jyotindra Jain in the library.

INVESTIGATING KITCHEN IMPLEMENTS - GETTING STARTED

Researching Indian products through published material is invariably difficult because Indian products are not documented and written about much. So this is why what this batch of students is attempting is very important. I don't think any of them has realizes this yet! So other methods of collecting information need to be used. Ahmedabad is fortunate to have a museum of vessels (http://www.vechaar.com/metal_utensils.html) and a visit to this museum good could be a good start. The bulk of the information would really come from oral testimonies - from senior product designers, from the older generation, from professional cooks, owners of shops selling kitchen ware, hotel owners and the like. The internet would also throw up something, especially from websites of companies manufacturing kitchen equipment. Also old magazines which product advertisements - the NID library has bound volumes of the Illustrated Weekly of India for instance. Find out what the object you have chosen to study is called in different Indian languages and that might give a clue (for instances see if the word is Arabic, or Persian, or indigenous - that will give you something to follow up). See if the kind of food related to the object is eaten in other cultures - for instance roti, tortilla, pancake - check what implements are used in those cultures.

Record all the information along with all available visuals. MENTION SOURCES FROM WHERE INFORMATION WAS ACCESSED - For oral testimonies mention person, date and time of interview and place of interview. For websites - mention url and date it was accessed. For books - author, title, publisher, date of publishing and place of publishing. Make a start on this and see how it goes.

KITCHEN IMPLEMENTS IN INDIA TODAY

To explore the idea of continuity and change in the design of products we are going to investigate implements used in Indian kitchens – to see where they came from, how they are adapted to Indian food and cooking methods and how they have changed in response to changes in taste and lifestyle.

We have brought into the classroom a toy kitchen set – a set quite appropriately called INDIA TODAY! Working in groups of three and four, we will be studying the pressure cooker, idli steamer, knives and other cutting implements, chakla-belan, oven, gas stove, tiffin box, refrigerator, orange juicer, cup and saucer, food processor and toaster.

SYNTHESIS, CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

History is often seen as a catalogue of changes over time. Yet, most cultures have living traditions which go back millennia and while a study of the history of design looks at how things changed over time, we also need to account for how some objects, images, symbols and rituals persist – often with little change.

In groups, participants investigated ancient cultures from different parts of the world – Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, Greece, Indus Valley, China, Central America – to explore their cultural achievements, their contact with each other and the synthesis and sharing that this led to and elements that persist to this day.

HOMO FABER, HOMO LUDENS, HOMO SYMBOLICUS - HOMO DESIGNER?

What were the first acts of design? The course participants looked at ways in which early humans used elements from their environment to fashion tools made of bone and stone, shelters from wood, leaves and hide, clothing from bark and hide, visual expression in cave paintings and through hand gestures and ways in which these transformed human societies. Central to this investigation was the role of fire - the security it offered, the possibility of cooking food and its implications for hunting and leisure, gathering around the fire and its impact in the development of song, dance and storytelling and so on. There was also discussion on how 19^th century archeologists, anthropologists and adventurers investigated, uncovered and deciphered this aspect of human achievement and transformed our knowledge of human history. And in the process our understanding of Homo Designer.

The Forgotten Map

Due to the decisions humanity has taken in the past have to lead us to a place of global crisis.
Life is an understanding sequence of bifurcations. The Decisions in the life are very important. The understanding of Life holds for individual as well as for Community is the same.
` The world described in the 12th century was and felt was a world where love was not only possible but made sense and had a universal meaning. For the centuries there are always, two worlds representing the route we navigated, and the other the route which we still have to navigate. We and Nature, the observer and observed are separate entities. Science is the supreme Manifestation of reason, and reason is the supreme attribute of the human being.
A discipline where mathematics has become an end in itself instead of a tool, and where only that which can be measured is important, has generated models and interpretations that are theoretically attractive but totally divorced from reality. All of a sudden in the last century we found ourselves in the world of confusion; in a world where progress becomes so incomprehensible that we desperately seek refuge in a technology that offers us an escape into virtual realities.
We have never in all of our existence accumulated more knowledge than during the last 100 years. We are celebrating the apotheosis of reason, but in the midst of such a splendid celebration we suddenly have the feeling that something is missing. The result will be that we will know everything that van be known about love. But once we achieve that complete knowledge, we will sooner or later discover that we will never understand love unless we fall in love.
We have learnt that knowledge is not enough, and that we have to learn how to attain understanding in order to achieve the completeness of our being and the completeness of our science. We are, perhaps, beginning to realize that knowledge without understanding is hollow, and that understanding without knowledge is incomplete. ‘Knowledge is not the road that leads to understanding but understanding is the result of integration, while knowledge has been the result of detachment.’ Language influences our perceptions and hence shapes our actions. In the past there was nobody who was in hurry. After all they were constructing for eternity, and eternity in Timelessness. The language dominating the 19th century was basically that of the consolidation of the nation-state. It was only in the 20th century that the dominant language became that of economics, especially during the second half.
We have a tendency to perceive ourselves as members of a successful culture. However, the truth is that no matter how far we extend the concept of success, we are still incomplete beings, materially overdeveloped and spiritually poor.
We need a new language that opens the door of understanding; not a language that may emerge from the depth of our self-discovery as an inseparable part of a whole that is the cradle of the miracle of life.
“If we would seek comfort in the whole, we must learn to discover the whole in the smallest detail that which she intends as a whole.”


Girish Wagh
girish_w@nid.edu
Product Design