Ornate elephants, horses, gods and goddesses... made with Plaster of Paris by craftsmen from Rajasthan, make excellent artefacts that can highlight the corner of a room or the inside column in a big hall or lounge.

Plaster of Paris is widely used as a cast for setting broken bones and as a constituent of plaster, in the building industry.  Not many of us are aware that it also helps peasants and farmers mostly from Rajasthan to make a living.  Whole families coming from an agricultural background, have settled in Chennai after having left their native State because of drought.

Mansa Ram, who is a leader of a group of three families, is the one who prepares the mould.  Shankar Lal his younger brother, opens the mould after the plaster of paris has set and smoothens the surface of the figurines.  Then the women in the group take over and paint the statues or objects in various colours.  It is usually black or white for the gods and goddesses, while for the other figurines like horses or for any ornamentation, it is usually reddish brown. The whole process takes a week or two. The number of items they make every week is depending on the weather, as sunshine would mean the moulds dry quicker.

Mansa Ram says in a spattering of Hindi and Tamil, "We have been in this trade for over 15 years now. Except for during summer, we always do roaring business.  Most of the customers are railway passengers and those who wait for the bus in the nearby terminus.  They buy because the items are both attractive and cheap.  We also do clay figurines.  We sell our items from Rs. 25/- to 1,000/-.  The price increases based on the size and complexity of the decoration.  We also do moulds if people come and give us the photograph of what they want.  For this we charge a little extra".

Approach: Take your left while coming from under the Perambur subway or your right if coming from Lourdes Shrine, Perambur.  The place is a few minutes walk from the bus terminus.