Kalinga Nagar tribals carving stones
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Bhubaneswar (Orissa): The glory of Oriya temple architecture reaches its pinnacle in the Sun Temple at Konark.
The temple with its profusion of sculpture and magnificent proportions, the pillars of stone, towering gateway and larger-than-life-sized reliefs speak high of the architectural skills of the Oriya sculptors.
The past glory and stone carving is being recreated by the tribal men and women of Kalinga Nagar.
As part of its responsibility for the rehabilitated persons for its steel plant in Kalinga Nagar, the Tata Steel has started providing training to the rehabilitated tribal persons in various categories including stone carving.
The quality of the material is an extremely important part of the sculptural process. Just as the Shilpa Shastra set out the measurements and techniques of sculpting, the sculptors here have also gone into a detail regarding the quality of stone, its maturity, texture, colour and other things.
The stone – locally called as Khadi Pathar – is abundantly available in the nearby areas. The stone is cut by moving a series of wedges about 5 to 7.5 cm deep. These wedges are driven carefully with heavy 4 kg hammers, resulting in the rocks breaking apart from clean edges.
Ketaki Behera, one of the stone carving trainees, after being rehabilitated, was decided to join the stone carving programme, as she was very interested in art and sculpture.
For her, the training is one of the most enjoyable programme. Apart from her own interest, she is also getting a stipend of Rs 300 per month.
Initially, she started carving stone after the trainer paint a picture. Now, she echoes confidence to pick up the knowledge within a year.
Ketaki wants to be a household name by carving stone beautifully.
Silpi Ashok Moharana, the trainer, says that the interest to learn stone carving among these tribal’s has pleased him a lot. He is hopeful that these tribals will be able to carve properly within a year.
