Our correspondent finds out that making bangles requires a handful of skill
Bangles are dainty. Bangles are feminine. Bangles have had many Bollywood songs written about them. But trying to make one of them definitely drives away any romantic illusions about this ethnic accessory. I learned this fact at Chokhi Dhani, the village resort on the periphery of Pune, where Roshanlal, a bangle maker was kind enough to take me on as his new student. I was in awe as I watched Roshanlal draw out a stout red bangle with white, silver and yellow colour stripes coiled around it. The bangle was hooked over a stick that he held over the blazed coal.

Roshanlal asked me to sit down near the burner and handed me the heated stick on which the bangles were moulded. “This stick is called a moudi, it has malleable lac affixed to its upper end which we heat on the burner. As the lac melts, mould it with this wooden tool and make a bangle,” he said.

For the next 15 minutes, I kept juggling and fumbling with the moudi, but nothing else except time, seemed to be melting over the burner. Roshanlal gave me cold stare. “Hold the stick close to the burner or else the lac will not melt,” he said.

I followed his advice though I kept thinking my fingers were going to get singed. The lac started melting. Roshanlal was ready with the next set of instructions. “Now, we need to melt the colours and coat it with lac. Choose whatever colour you like,” said Roshanlal. I picked yellow. The colour had to be melted like the lac, but it seemed more stubborn. I finally managed after another 10 minutes.

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