Punkhas-2

Here is one more variety of hand held fans:

This one is made of Palm leaf-dried. You can see how efficiently the leaf and its stalk have been used to create this. The stalk has been used as a handle and the leaf as fan.

Here is a closer look. You can see that a small strip of the stalk has been used on the edge to keep the leaf in place tightly avoiding flip-flop when used. The thin string used to tie down this strip is also derived from the palm tree.

This type has been in use since ancient times. It is so simple to make from locally available materials which don't harm environment. In fact this is one way of using a dry leaf instead of throwing away or burning it. It means reducing the waste and utilising it for some purpose. More over the rural folk don't have money, material or time to waste. They extract maximum out of everything. After all they work very hard.

These fans are actually dipped in water and used for fanning. They give cool air. I don't know whether this is true or not. But we used to use it like that as children and still do. 

These fans along with mangoes are distributed in this month of Vaisakha as it is believed that distributing them in summer will not only benefit others but we will also gain lot of good blessings. It is a tradition in our region.

I have bought around 101 fans this year to give away sometime during this month....hope you do too at least some what ever you can afford....

Keep watching my blog for more.....