Anna cuts, harvests and dresses stones for the construction of wells and dwellings

Each taluka in Maharashtra has only a handful of such craftsmen called tapkars. Naturally, Anna is in demand. But, there is one place now, where you can catch a glimpse of him. You can read about his traditional skill, his personality, his idea of a weekly off, his love for stones of the Deccan terrain, and most importantly, his favourite stone-slicing sutaki, in a new children’s book Sutakiwale Anna. It has been published by a Phaltan-based studio, Dawaat-e-Dakkan, which works in the fields of motion picture, literature and architecture. The 45-page slim book (R120) can be ordered online, and offers a colourful photo-biography of the Indian stone splitter, who belongs to the rare fast-diminishing breed of sutaki users. With sutaki being replaced by automated crushers and other mechanised devices in mega-construction projects, tapkars are not heard of in urban areas. 

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Sutaki users are usually in demand in wada-type constructions, where the harvested stone is used instead of bricks. Architects espousing sustainable eco-friendly building materials seek their expertise to chisel stones in suitable shapes. In fact, Anna’s fame as the expert stone-splitter brought him in contact with Dawaat-e-Dakkan’s founders and publishers Wasimbarry and Tahirnakkash Maner. The duo was in search of an expert for the construction of the Iravati Karve library attached to Phaltan’s Kamala Nimbkar Balbhavan, an experimental school modelled by American sociologist Dr Maxine Berntsen in 1988. 

Anna cuts, harvests and dresses stones for the construction of wells and dwellings

The Maner brothers, hailing from a Muslim family and studying in a zilla parishad school earlier, are among the first students cherry-picked by ‘Maxine Aaji’ for the educational module, based on a connect with natural environment and the arts. 

Cycling through the lanes of Phaltan in the late 1980s, Dr Berntsen spoke extensively to parents from varied backgrounds about her concept. “My father, a tailor by profession, was earlier reluctant to wean children away from the ZP curriculum. But, the family was eventually grateful for the vision and values she inculcated in us,” says Wasimbarry, a filmmaker-writer, who after several research and production stints across Indian metros, founded the studio in Phaltan in 2005.  His brother, Tahirnakkash, a mechanical engineer, joined him five years later. 

Wasimbarry (right) and Tahirnakkash Maner first learnt of Anna’s work, when they were looking for an expert for the construction of a library

It is rewarding to note that even Maxine Aaji, the living legend, now 85 and still active in Hyderabad, fondly recalls her years in Phaltan. Dr Berntsen remembers Wasimbarry’s fourth standard limerick, and even recited it for this columnist. “His imagination and observation skills surprised us then.  No wonder, he now produces such picturesque precious books,” she says.

Dawaat-e-Dakkan’s 12-odd publications, including the latest Sutakiwale Anna, are devoted to early childhood learning principles devised by  Dr Berntsen.  The Marathi books invite children into the world of colours, rhymes and ordinary-looking but interesting people like Anna. “The idea is to arouse their curiosity in everyday lingo,” says Wasimbarry, who has etched Anna’s portrait through the prism of the stones that he chisels.  

The family of stone implements—gunya, pichar, channi, valamba, dori and sutaki—used by Anna

The layout, design and text is purposefully underwhelming, aimed at collective reading, not vocabulary building. Anna, the tireless skilled labourer working in the scorching sun and pouring rain, comes alive in minimal words.  The usual biographical narrative—age, full name, family background, residence—is disregarded.  “As Dr Berntsen taught us, children have to be guided through textured stories, not stuffed with infographs.”

In fact, Wasimbarry’s another acclaimed story collection, Zhumkula, also has several juicy stories, which are fleshed out in part-Marathi and part-Dakkhani, the dialect spoken by people residing in the Deccan plateau across eight Indian states.  The Maners have a strong emotional connect with Dakkhani since childhood, a flavour they nurture in their literature.

Their studio conducts workshops on early literacy patterns, thereby sensitising mainstream schools to off-stream subjects, characters and stories preferred by children. “We don’t need stylised foreign characters to expand children’s horizons. We have to open their eyes and ears to the marvels in our local dynamic.” The Maners are advocates of the mother tongue as the effective medium of instruction at elementary level.

Meanwhile, the book release of Sutakiwale Anna has turned Phaltan’s Anna into a sort of local celebrity. His famous sutaki is the star operator in the family of sharp implements like gunya, pichar, channi, valamba, dori.  The usage of the specialised toolkit generates its own lexicon, which only Anna is privy to. These days, Anna often receives calls from curious readers, who admire his skilled hands and express the desire to meet him in person. He invites them for fishing on Sundays, and Anna is known to gift local talapi in abundance. “I am happy that so many people are reaching out to me because of a book,” he says. Anna’s sutaki has finally created a slot in history, and this one is set in stone.

Sumedha Raikar-Mhatre is a culture columnist in search of the sub-text. You can reach her at sumedha.raikar @mid-day.com