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| Geetanjali Krishna: Old isn't gold, it's copper |
| Geetanjali Krishna / New Delhi Jan 30, 2010, 00:40 IST |
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Looking at you, I feel life has come full circle,” commented the old man, when he saw me looking longingly at the traditional hand-beaten vessels of brass and copper in his shop. I was in Jaipur’s Tripolia Bazaar, trying to figure out how many kilos of metal ware I could carry around without dislocating my shoulders. Entering his dim old shop aglitter with pots, pans and plates, I asked: “Why do you say that?” He smiled: “When I was a child, all the pots and pans in my mother’s kitchen were made of copper and brass. I still remember how she’d scour them out with cut lemons to make them gleam…” said he, reminiscing how the best pots and pans from their family shop invariably landed up in their family kitchen.
“At that time, my mother used to say that storing water in a copper vessel was not only good for health, it even purified unclean water,” said he, “and she simmered dal slowly in an old brass pot everyday … it tasted incredible!” Copper, he said, was an excellent conductor of heat, which meant that food cooked much faster in it. However, the look of his family kitchen as well as the flavour of the food they ate changed subtly when stainless steel and aluminum made their appearance. “Suddenly, these shiny new vessels that were comparatively easier to manage, replaced all our old utensils,” said he. These were soon supplemented by non-stick pans and pressure cookers: “And the merchandise in our shop here also changed accordingly.”
Soon the only copper and brass utensils he sold were the ones used for religious rituals. “There were just no takers for kitchen utensils made from brass and copper. For one thing, these metals were more expensive than steel — copper is currently priced at about Rs 250 a kilo, brass at Rs 180 while steel is barely about Rs 40,” said he. Further, unlike steel which is relatively easy to maintain, copper and brass needed regular polishing and non-reactive tin coating (to prevent acids in food from reacting with the metal).
Of late, however, things have come full circle with a resurgence of interest in copper and brass. “A foreigner who came to my shop said that in the West, they now believe that drinking water from a copper jug can actually prevent the graying of hair! She actually said that she would use the copper jug she’d bought from me, and stop taking her supplements,” said he. He now finds that the utensils that he and his family had dismissed as being old fashioned, have suddenly regained their desirability. “When I was young, only cheaper pots were hand-beaten into shape. Today, they command a better price because people find them more attractive. The fact that they are handmade and often imperfect in their shape only seems to add to their beauty. Instead, people now look down on steel and actually say aluminium utensils are bad for health … how times change!”
Even more incredible, said he, was the fact that there were so many more takers for what he called “second hand” (read “antique”) kitchen things. “There’s no question of selling those by weight! The other day, the shop next door sold a blackened old handi that had been lying in their store for decades, for five times its price!” said he. Every other day, he said, not just tourists but savvy locals would come to him, asking for “old” utensils. “All I can think of is why my dear departed mother didn’t have the foresight to keep her old handis and degchis instead of selling them for scrap!”
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